


Deify Me And Wring My Soul Of Ink

by cassyeopeia



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Blasphemy, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Dark Fantasy, Dark Imagery, Drunk Sex, Emotional Manipulation, Family Member Death, Finger Sucking, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loss of Faith, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Mind Games, Past Abuse, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Seongjoong (mentioned), There's Fluff Somewhere In There Too, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 59,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassyeopeia/pseuds/cassyeopeia
Summary: “I want to know what happened. Five years ago. Three years ago. I don’t care if they killed me right after. At least I’ll carry the true history down in the afterlife.”“Do you want to write about it? Or why is it that you want to know so much when the others are trying to forget?”“Because my brother so desperately tried to conceal things. To impose his principles onto others and eradicate everything that was not his own truth. And I fear that my entire life I’ve believed the wrong truth.”
Relationships: Jeong Yunho/Kang Yeosang
Comments: 18
Kudos: 61





	1. A Somber, Solipsistic Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and Happy Halloween (still a few hours left of it at the time I'm writing this)
> 
> I've been meaning to start posting this yesterday, but Ateez have decided to drop 'The Black Cat Nero' and I got distracted.  
> Anyway! Here's something I've been excited (and kind of scared) to write for a long time. After a year...here's my promised second YunSang fic.

Angels cried over the city of Graz, and their tears dissolved into a mist so thick that upon inbreathing through it, one would feel their lungs flooding. It was one of the coldest evenings of the year, the seventh day since the city has been cursed with no sunlight. Smoke rose from chimneys in clouds of malevolent spirits trapped within the firewood, but the mist devoured everything that was substance and colour.

When it rained, the city laughed and feasted, and when the rivulets between the dark cobblestone would hiss as loud as snakes, they cowered and ran back inside. Everyone slept with a cross underneath their pillows. Sometimes at night, a voice would echo from deep within the Alps. It was soft and melodic as a harp, and people believed it was a cry of hope from the angels. There was someone who wanted to bless them, but there were other forces at work. And these forces never slept.

Less than fifty years ago, the city was divided into humans and vampires. The eight districts in the west were given to the vampires, and the ones in the east were given to the humans, with the border being the Mur river. The innermost district— the _Innere Stadt_ , remained something of a common ground. The priests, the police forces, and the vampire hunters lived there. However, this district was also divided. The west belonged to the largest and most feared families and covens of vampires, and the east belonged to the wealthy, along with all the powerful names of Steiermark.

At first there was peace. Humans would send fresh corpses and blood banks over for the vampires to feed on so they would have no reason to cross the border. The sickly and elderly were euthanised, sometimes without their consent, out of fear of starving vampires.

But this diplomatic peace lasted shortly. Less than ten years. Some said that it was the sudden decrease in human population that worried the men in power, so they sent vampire hunters in disguise to murder them in the shadows. Others said that it was the vampires’ hunger who forced them to cross the border and illegally feed on innocent humans. 

The manner in which vampires have fled the city has been erased from history, but the stench of blood in the western districts of the city was far more prominent. Within the cracks of wood, the drives of screws, or the seam of flags, the smell of blood forever lingered. It was a curse that no priest could lift. They sent the devil away from the city more times than days in a year, but no ritual, prayer or autumn wind has ever had the courage to take the sanguineous smell away.

After the humans reclaimed their city, the remaining vampires who failed to run or immigrate were given an isolated village outside of Graz named Thal with the responsibility to feed themselves however they would. They were closely observed by vampire hunters. Nobody has ever known how they survived in a secluded place with no human blood to feed on, but the vampires used this lack of knowledge to their advantage. They had agreed to move there so long as no humans trespassed into the village, otherwise they would end up as livestock. During the nights when their human vision was weakest, the vampires forged spells and cursed the soil, _sanctifying_ it and renaming it into sacred land. The human soldiers who crossed to their sacred land were cursed into an incurable disease where their blood would flow like rivers when they would do so little as to cut themselves, ridding them of their ability to form blood clots and heal.

The Jeong family were known for being the most skilled vampire hunters in the country. They were numerous, with everyone having three to six siblings, and they were all raised to kill vampires. Their services have been so requested and this little industry of theirs became so popular that they have even established schools and taught classes at regular educational institutions. They lived by strict rules and had no connections outside the family until the day one was to marry, and the poor soul of the chosen spouse would have to swear loyalty.

However, as years passed, members of the Jeong family started disappearing without a trace. They lived in large, expensive houses that occupied nearly the entire _Innere Stadt_ , but once they started losing sight of their loved ones, they gathered into a single house. And usually the day the house would be left empty, it would mysteriously catch fire.

And so it went until three years ago.

At present the village was only ruin. It carried years of bad omen in history and stories alone. So much that nobody has ever had the courage to inhabit it. But the only thing that has helped them sleep at night was the assurance that it was entirely abandoned.

Jeong Yunho stood at the beginning of the road that led to Thal, drawing the roof of the church in his sketchpad with a coal pencil. Every person he walked past on his way there warned him about the cold, but he had the thermal resistance of an arctic fox. He was fully wrapped in clothes, his hands were empty and numb, but he had a drawing to finish.

He held his sketchpad to his chest as he proceeded to walk through the streets of the village. It was the first time he’s ever had the courage to venture inside. His best kept secret was that of challenging whatever his late family members wrote in their journals. He’s heard that they have once been powerful, that they were the greatest and that they were the ones who rewrote the law. They described the streets of Thal as ‘stepping through crumbs of bones and pebbles of sand’ but the grass Yunho stepped on was softer than fresh snow. Flowers outlined the doorframes and there were too many bird nests than he could count. It was something pleasant to watch, but he could not call the place beautiful or safe. The air was pungent in iron even through that mist. Yunho covered his nose with his comforter, his eyes on the raven that sat atop of the cross of the church. He carried something bright red in its beak, or maybe it was the eyes that gleamed so threateningly. Yunho couldn’t see clearly.

He pushed the church door open with the tips of his fingers, clenching his teeth, cringing at the creaking that eerily sounded like someone’s laugh. Before he entered, he removed his pistol from its holster and counted his silver bullets.

The information about this church was limited. Nobody knew what its name has been changed to, nor which system of worship it was used to practise. There were narrow records of vampires’ spirituality, but Yunho argued that there would have been more if the historians had spent less time accusing them of blasphemy without solid proof.

Once inside, Yunho took his first breath of warmer air, although there wasn’t much difference in temperature. The light flowed in through the stained glass, painting soft lines on the left of the altar, though it was coated in dust as seamlessly as snow. The floor bent under the weight of his step like it was paper thin in a blasphemous attempt to search anything or anyone else to worship. Lying on the altar underneath a sheet of cobwebs were bouquets of basils. The ciborium and paten have been left where they were meant to be, but the crucifixes have been bent and torn and weaponised in destroying the entire transept. There were no signs of claw marks or bloodstains where the light fell, but he wasn’t there to explore the shadows. He picked up his sketchpad and quickly drew the altar and the basil bouquets while standing with his back against the window. For a short moment he was lost into the colourful pattern light laid across the pages, walking his finger around a scarlet one that seemed to look like an eye. He shook himself out of the trance and finished his drawing.

Behind the Apse there was a black curtain, and from underneath that curtain came a thread of light, too within the obscure for Yunho to inspect. He made a quick note under the drawing of the altar to return when it was brighter outside. And hopefully not alone.

He looked up at the shadowy paintings on the ceiling when he accidentally stepped on something that had slipped underneath the carpet. He scooped it out with the tip of his boot, then reached to pick it up. It was a golden cross with a ruby core, too small to be a decoration. As he leaned down to pick it up and study the details to memorise them for his drawing, a silver bullet slipped out of his pocket. He paid it no mind at first, softly blowing the dust away from the cross, drawing the lines of the inscriptions and the priest’ portrait with his little finger.

The sound of the bullet rolling across the floor stopped abruptly, followed by the floor creaking under one’s weight.

Yunho looked up at the caliginous figure standing where the light didn’t reach, his heart freezing in his chest, and his teeth chattering in sudden fear. He took a step back towards the door, grasping the cross so tightly in his hand, that the portrait of the saint ingrained in his palm. When he took his second step towards the light, the other kneeled down on one knee and picked the bullet up with his claws, tilting his head and moving his hand like it was a piece of fine jewellery.

It was a young thing. A creature of the night. A lost someone from the old novels. Yunho’s eyes were shaking out of their sockets, his right hand grasping his chest as to toss his heart out. With his third step back, the creature stood back up and looked at him. His eyes were the colour of dimming fire, his skin was bright and shimmering like winter dew. He tucked his hair behind his ear and held his hand out for Yunho to take the bullet. “You dropped this,” he smiled forebodingly, and Yunho’s systems gave in. He stumbled against the end of the carpet and fell down, his joints aching with how violently they trembled. With teary eyes, he lifted his palm at a safe distance from the other. He trapped the bullet once it fell into his palm, clashing his teeth together when the young man gently extended his hand, his fingers opening up like a blooming flower. “Should I help you stand?” His moves were mellow and graceful. Dangerously veracious. But Yunho slapped his hand away when it had gotten too close. The stained glass performed kaleidoscopes in his eyes. It was their gentleness that terrified Yunho the most.

And he ran. Groaning in anger when his body wanted to sob, he dug holes into the soil and cut through the mist as sharply as a blade, he pressed his eyes and prepared his lungs to shout at himself to keep running when his legs wanted to cave in, but the only sound to echo was that of his panting and chattering.

He locked the door and collapsed on the floor of his bedroom, hands clenched over his heart and eyes closed until the ceiling would stop spinning around. He felt as though he slept for minutes for the first time that week and each dream was about a day to follow. It was a similar experience to having his life flash before his eyes. A near death experience that excited his sick subconscious to ask for more. He slowly gathered himself up, moving his eyes across his room to remember where he was. He threw his comforter and coat over his reading chair, his shirt and suspenders, then threw himself on the bed and took his first complete breath. He looked at his left hand as he held it above him, wondering when he lost his ring. He did not care much for the small object, but that ring once belonged to his brother and it was a testimony to what their lineage has once been famous for.

He patted along the floor in search for his sketchpad, but snapped his eyes open when he evoked the memory of him running away. How he held a bullet in one hand, and how his pulse froze in his other. On the back of his fingers there were three white lines— scratch marks from when he slapped the creature’s hand away. His hand shivered softly as it adjusted to the warmth of the room, but the rest of him was yet to gain sense.

That sketchpad also belonged to his brother. It was sent to him after he mysteriously died in his mission. It had lied inside a crate where his vampire hunting kit was, along with the rings he wore, essays he’s published, and a suitcase where he kept his belongings.

His brother, Yunseo, was a good man. Until he started speaking about vampires. Then it was almost as if the devil possessed him. He was kind and loved Yunho very much, but his grudge against vampires have led him to the psychiatric ward three times in his life.

After their parents disappeared, they became much closer and protected each other. Within the community of vampire hunters, numbers were crucial to Yunseo. The place which they called headquarters was a pub where every night they counted the fangs of the vampires they had slain. No one has ever managed to defeat him. The purpose of the sketchpad was for him to draw the portrait of the dead vampire who lied at his feet. He was not a good artist, and this made it easier for Yunho to flip through the pages with a worriless mind. But Yunho, who has never killed a vampire, decided to fill the empty pages with places where vampire sightings have been reported.

He enclosed his grief inside a bell jar, watching with his memory’s eyes as the flame of it extinguished itself, the ribbons of smoke chasing each other like the shadows of bats at his window. Too tired and alert to pay attention to his needs, he tossed his clothes away and changed into his nightwear and shoved his gun underneath the pillow next to his.

“Hyung, are you okay?” The bright voice of a boy said, joined by a soft knock at the door. “Can I come in?”

Yunho lifted himself into a sitting position at the edge of the bed, ascertaining himself that the weapon was entirely covered. “Yeah.”

The young boy who entered his room was still in his uniform, with a pair of glasses on top of his head, and a book in his hand. His name was Jongho and he was a student at the vampire hunting school, in the branch that was affiliated with the church. “You’re going to bed this early? Are you ill?”

“No. Just tired.”

“You’re pale.”

“Am I? I didn’t look in the mirror.”

“…Where have you been?”

Jongho hung Yunho’s clothes over the backrest of his chair before taking a seat there. He was younger and smaller than Yunho, and despite the fact that they lived in the same house and ate meals together, they disagreed on a lot of topics. “…The church. The one in Thal.”

“Why did you go there?”

Yunho scoffed, standing up to fetch himself a glass of water, but the jug was nearly empty, so he drank straight from there. “You’re gonna tell the clergy again.”

“I said I was sorry. I won’t tell them anything.”

Jongho followed him to the kitchen although his question was left unanswered. Months ago Yunho confessed to him that based on his brother’s research and memoirs vampires had not yet gone extinct, and out of panic and loyalty to the church, Jongho ran and told the Cardinal. Yunho cared for him too much to become upset with him, but has since limited his contact with him, locking the door when he was in his study, or doing his research after the younger fell asleep.

“I think I saw someone there,” Yunho said after silence had settled around them.

The younger’s eyes sparkled at the new information, looking at the window and door before looking back at Yunho. His faith was quick to challenge him. “…Vampire?” He whispered.

“I don’t know,” he looked at the cup in his hand, red eyes and silver hair flashing across the ripples. “I was too scared and I ran. It looked so real.”

Jongho gulped. “Will you go back?”

“I want to. If there is someone, maybe I can convince them to listen to me.”

For three years now, Jongho has been kindly urging him to practice faith as actively as he did when his family was alive. One by one, his grandparents and parents and siblings perished like the flames of a candle against an open window. And with them collapsed Yunho’s faith. His family bathed and washed their clothes in holy water, they drank it on an empty stomach, and cleansed their tools with it. They claimed to have given them immunity against diabolical forces, to enhance their senses and speed. They punished Yunho for studying science as science would lead him in doubting the existence of God.

“Why are you searching for them?”

When Jongho’s parents sent him to work within the city, Yunho was the one who offered him a house in exchange for nothing. And for that, the younger was grateful to him, but he never knew how to convince him to speak to a priest. He was afraid Yunho was losing his mind. The entire city fought for a future where vampires would be something less than a myth, and Yunho was digging the history of his family for places to meet the creatures.

“I want to know what happened. Five years ago. Three years ago. I don’t care if they killed me right after. At least I’ll carry the true history down in the afterlife.”

“Do you want to write about it? Or why is it that you want to know so much when the others are trying to forget?”

“Because my brother so desperately tried to conceal things. To impose his principles onto others and eradicate everything that was not his own truth. And I fear that my entire life I’ve believed the wrong truth.”

Jongho filled himself a cup of water, moving to stand next to Yunho. “We’re too low to aspire to something that only God can own, hyung. Humans will say it was the vampires. The vampires will say it was us.”

“Do you believe in true-hearted humans, Jongho?”

“I do.”

“Then there must be vampires with a good heart as well. I don’t want what God has, I want that something I deserve.”

Jongho nodded to himself, outlining the rim of the cup with the side of his thumb like seconds going around the surface of a clock. “…I’m going to Vienna tomorrow. With the group.”

“Really? How long?”

“Two-three days. We’ll have lessons at the St. Stephan’s cathedral, but also fieldwork in the crypts and catacombs. Those I look forward to.”

“For someone who thinks the devil is hiding in the dark, you are quite passionate about frightening places.”

“Places hidden from the sun hold much more to them than those that meet the light. It’s because of this reason that I understand your interest in vampiric ruins. But hyung, I won’t be here to remind you to pray before bed, so you mustn’t forget."

“I won’t forget. You’ll be with me in spirit.”

“...I am reminded of the many times my spirit has failed to reach you.”

Yunho sighed. “Just trust me?”

“…Alright. I trust you,” he drank the last sip from his cup and gave it a quick rinse, then filled a smaller jug to take to his room. “Is the baron coming for dinner tomorrow?”

“I hope not, but I think he will nonetheless. Instead of praying for me, could you pray for him to get a wife so he would stop visiting so often?”

“Why, a man like him is undeserving of a family, hyung. I will see what is the wisest thing to do when you are unwanting of someone’s presence. But have you tried telling him you are unwell? You know, one of those basic excuses.”

“If I tell him I am unwell, he will bring doctors. If I tell him I will be gone, he will ask questions and worry.”

“A stranger would think you like him, hyung. You speak softly about him.”

“…He’s treated me well my entire life. But he hasn’t treated other people the same. He’s as obstinate as my brother once was. The infuriating kind of obstinacy that I would leave someone alone on a deserted island for.”

“You’ve become less and less patient with people. Your age is showing.” He laughed and prepared himself to run when Yunho threatened to throw the tea towel at him. In the end he did, but much more leisurely. “I’ll go prepare my suitcase for tomorrow. Then I’ll come and administer your injections. Don’t fall asleep.”

Yunho replied with a tepid hum, staring out the window through the sheer, golden curtains. When he was alone, he leaned over the table with his face buried to the crook of his elbow, torn by a series of poor decisions and inconclusive conversations.

He could have imagined it all. His brain could have subjected him to a number of pareidolia although his senses have crested. He was as alert as a criminal in hiding, but apparently not enough to stimulate his mind. The image of a beautiful young boy with auburn eyes appeared from the shadows, kindly returning him the silver bullet he could have killed him with. The tips of his fingers were pink, there was no hunger in his eyes, and no fangs sparkled from beneath his lips when he spoke.

Once in his room, he drew all the curtains closed, picked his prayer book and the novel he was reading, waiting for Jongho while meditating by the edge of the bed. His chin seemed to have a tendency to rise itself as if there was nothing to weigh his head down. There was mist and black feathers and a rain of red dust. His mind and heart were built upon the graves of people murdered in places he’s never frequented, shot by firearms he’s never held. He was alive, but all of that had costed his joy and his desire to see another day.

“I think you should sleep in my room tonight,” he told Jongho while the younger was preparing his injection. He became nauseous only looking at the vial. He didn’t know what was inside it. The doctors only told him to take those regularly and to never miss any. He’s learned to administer them himself, but he enjoyed the surprise of someone else inflicting pain on him. Intense sensations like those, although unpleasant, were what kept his mind functioning.

“But...sharing a bed with another man...”

Yunho groaned. “I won’t do anything, damn it.”

“I didn’t say you would! I…Alright. I’ll sleep here.”

Though he could not sleep like that. He pushed himself towards the edge of the bed, facing Yunho only out of kindness, but the vibrations of his heartbeats travelled across the bedsheets like waves on an ocean up to Yunho’s palm.

Yunho lived his nights more fervently than he did with his days. He lied on the floor before the wide-open window hoping the ceiling would crash onto him. He smiled at the shrieks of bats like it was his call to freedom, and found soothingness in the way drunkards spat death threats at each other, and how somehow every night there were fewer and fewer of them.

A part of him loved Jongho like a little brother, but the part of him that held his family’s name in the highest esteem forbad him to offer anyone else the role of a brother. After the younger fell asleep, he turned around, eyes away from the lamp’s light while Yunho continued reading his book.

Yunho was surprised to see how quick Jongho was able to fall asleep despite not showing any signs of tiredness. Maybe there was a level of selfish trust that the divine will always protect him from ill dreams and urge him to wake up in time to catch the train. Praying before going to bed was something of a ritual. He’d kneel in the dark before the open window, palms brought together against his lips, and with his eyes closed he’d recite prayer after prayer in a sequence similar to a story’s scenes. He was the one who indited Yunho his prayer book, but he only had to read two each night.

But Yunho was an unfaithful reader. He started a different book in a different language every week, but it was always a gamble until he’d find one that did not feature the death of a loved one. He started tens of books, but he had only finished two. He was currently reading a collection of children’s stories in Hungarian, and he was more than halfway through. Reading consumed most of his time, but not as quickly as he wanted. There were not enough books that he could complete, and that meant more time which he spent brooding and unburying things entombed away from his eyes.

He closed his eyes and picked the prayer book instead, in the end falling asleep with it in his hand.

✝︎

Every dream Yunho's had that night revolved around the lost sketchpad. He ran away with it while being chased by an army of corpses, he saved it from a fire, or he found it in a secret room, but all of the pages were empty. Jongho had already left by the time he woke up, but he left him a good morning note on his pillow. The sun had long risen and the streets were alive, howling and barking at the walls of Yunho’s ears.

Yunho dreaded every morning he woke up in a blasted world despite taking a piece of Jongho’s faith and asking the Lord to take him and never return him, but the mornings in which Jongho wasn’t there were even more dreadful. The boy was good company. He was passionate about many things, and his and Yunho’s antithetic views sparked conversations after lunch that sometimes lasted until past dinnertime. 

During mornings like those Yunho would have rather starved himself to death than leave his room. Now that the entire mansion belonged to him, he’s made every guest room into his personal bedroom, and also the reading room next to the library which he was currently using. The mansion had three floors and enough bedrooms to host an entire village. Sometimes items went missing and he often found the door to the conservatory wide open in the mornings despite never forgetting to lock it, but he’s never done anything about it. The things that were precious to him were well hidden from the eyes of burglars.

There has once been a time when his house smelled like myrrh or incense from all the thuribles that adorned the walls. The scent became so prominent that strangers would mistake the house for an unconventional church. On the occasion of someone’s birthday, Yunho sometimes still burned incense although sometimes weeks passed until the smell of it would fade.

Winter lived voiceless in his home throughout the entire year. He was always behind closed doors, alone with the muffled sounds from the other side as if he was under a heap of snow. While he wrote his essays, he locked the door and window, and piled as many books on his desk until he felt as cramped as within a coffin.

That day he wrote the most pages he’s written in the past weeks. It was another essay on the psychoanalysis of vampires, and it was the most progress he’s ever made. The first draft he’s ever written was a critical piece on his family’s written works. In his second draft he based his thinking on his family’s research only, with no form on personal input. And in the current one he’s used fictional works from the 18th century as evidence, from the times when vampires were fiction yet, like ‘Lenore’ by Gottfried August Bürger, and other poems. He wrote through the prism of a writer though his mind was dull and monochrome, and from a literary analysis it became a product of something he did not hate as much. Also, he was barefoot and still in his nightwear.

When the clock struck the sixteenth hour, he put his pen down and rubbed his eyes, wishing death upon himself when he realised it was a Sunday.

Every Sunday at six o’clock sharp he and the baron had dinner together. A recent tradition in Yunho’s household that his system has refused to adapt to. The man was very talkative, which Yunho would have appreciated had he not been the kind to ask ‘Can you repeat what I just said?’. Yunho poured all of his life force into that dinner with the risk of not getting any more work done after. If Yunho was not participating actively in the conversation, the baron would worry, and if he worried, he sent more doctors to his house.

He rushed to dress himself appropriately and transport all of his writing material to the lounge beside the kitchen, because if the baron found out that he sat locked in his study for hours, he would...call the doctors again.

So while this baron’s personal chef prepared the courses before the nobleman would arrive, Yunho would blankly stare at that one word inside his book until he left. After which he’d pray for patience and his once lost social abilities to visit him as faithfully as his lack of will to live.

The baron was a man old enough to be his father, shorter and much plumper than him, who liked to compensate for his size by wearing tight suits. He had the kind of face that if a violent wind came his way, his eyes and mouth would distort a bit, and his skin was wet paint.

“Oh, God in heaven, Yunho, this weather is terrible,” he said while taking his shoes and coat off. Yunho sighed his life out and recited one more prayer. Maybe for once this _God in heaven_ would listen. “The priests have started prophesying again. They’ve already sent word to Stephansdom.”

“Because of the fog, I assume.” Yunho straightened the ribbon bookmark with his finger and went to meet the baron in the foyer.

The man thanked his personal chef with an amicable clap on the back as he left, then went to embrace Yunho like a son he was reunited with after a war. “Yes. It seems the episcopal office has already started recruiting students in preparation for the next phase,” he rolled his sleeves up and quickly washed his hands in the basin beside the dining table, and as he wiped his hands, he looked through the room. “Is Jongho not joining us tonight?”

“He’s gone to Vienna with his class. To Stephansdom. I did not know there was a form of recruitment involved. This soon, I mean.”

“Tomorrow would be the seventh day with no sunlight. And from then onward, the days will only get darker. The church cannot afford to make the same mistake again.”

Yunho sat down in his usual seat, legs crossed, leaning back comfortably while thinking the right course of conversation so that it would end quicker. “But since when does the church uphold violence?”

“The church itself does not uphold violence. It is your mother’s school that does, and it just so happens that those two institutions work in concordance.”

“Ah, yes. Making others sully their hands with blood.”

“We can pray to have our sins forgiven, but if we lose this life, there will be no one to pray,” he said as he brought his palms together and closed his eyes to begin his prayer. 

Yunho mirrored him, although his eyes were open. He did not pray. He looked at the bowl of potato soup in front of him, trying to gather the will to eat it. It smelled sour and warm and had an appetising colour, but he felt his stomach still full from the loaf of bread he ate that morning. The second course was roasted beef served with bread dumplings. He looked away from it when he felt his stomach about to turn itself upside down.

“A little bird told me you went to Thal today.”

Yunho ate slowly, with his elbows against the table and holding the spoon loosely in his hand. He ate enough for the baron not to ask him if he was sick again. “This little bird must be quite observant.”

“Did I not tell you it could be dangerous?”

“Less dangerous than living by myself in a three-floor mansion in the epicentre of crime reports. Also, it’s very comforting to know that even after I explicitly told you to stop sending your people spy on me, you still continue to do however you please.”

“How is it that you still fail to understand how precious your life is, Yunho? In the vampires’ bible, your family’s name was like the devil’s. People worship you like a saint here. How could you throw this gift away?”

“Calling upon my family's name will not bring the sun back. They may pray to whoever they want, but nothing will change."

The baron devoured his soup in three spoonfuls, leaving the bottom of the bowl cleaner than he received it. He set it aside and picked up his second plate from underneath the steel cloche, but waited to Yunho to finish first. “What must I do to see you smile again, Yunho? It has been years. You used to laugh so much more. What can I do? Should I bring you someone to make you feel less lonely? Maybe you will start a family again-”

“If you wish for me to lock the doors every Sunday when you invite yourself over for dinner, then yes, do bring someone. Please do.”

The baron has been in close relations with Yunho’s mother years before she married. In fact, it was thanks to the baron that she and Yunho’s father have met. The three of them have maintained diplomatic relationships over the years, bound by the same beliefs and their desire to propagate the human race. When the couple was gone hunting or teaching, the baron was the one who took care of Yunho and his brother. After Yunho was left alone, he lived in the baron’s house, after which he moved with his cousins, and after he overheard the news that they wanted to sell his parents’ house, he moved back by himself.

“You’re like a son to me. I care for you, and I love you very much.”

“I know. But please leave me alone. If you care for me, leave me be. I don’t want anyone here.”

The baron nodded and proceeded to eat his second course. The dinner went far quieter than Yunho predicted, surprised to see himself enjoying the food better when his ears were at peace. The mistake Yunho made in the past weeks was to serve the baron wine, but the man had low alcohol tolerance and when he was tipsy he spoke louder than an entire tavern.

“Also,” Yunho began, filling himself a glass of water to make space for two more bites of his bread dumplings “If they ask you…Please tell them I do not wish to be involved in this anymore. I have essays to finish. I have told you many times before, and I hope you remember: I do not believe in the end of time. I do not believe in the extinction of this human race. And I do not believe in anything the clergy says. Prophecies or whatever.”

“But these prophecies have been written by a vampire himself. Do you not own one of the original manuscripts of the Vampiric Creed?”

Yunho shook his head. “That was not the Vampiric Creed. What you are talking about here was an eschatological manuscript written by the vampire elder. A leader of their cult, if you will. The equivalent of a priest. And what my family currently owns were the first three drafts, and all of those have been left incomplete. Saying that the first sign of the apocalypse is seven days with no sun followed by less and less daylight is factually incorrect because there is no proof in the manuscripts that they were referring to us. Have you ever considered that _we_ might be the apocalypse for _them_?”

The baron gripped his fork tightly in his fist before dropping it entirely. He grabbed his glass of water with his trembling hand, taking a large sip and slamming it back against the table. Yunho’s lips were still parted with the second half of his explanation, and upon seeing how quickly he’s managed to anger the baron, he continued right away, hoping he would infuriate him enough to make him leave. “There is clear evidence that the majority of them have been murdered or have fled the country in the first purge. There is written proof of vampire sightings in Bačka and Transylvania, but there has been no murder involved. And about those who haven't, there are the bags filled with bloody fangs as proof of onslaught. There is evidence for everything.”

“What would your father say if he heard you speaking so negligently? You saw the bite marks on his neck, and you still have the nerve, the temerity to sympathise with those demons.”

“No. You’re not listening to me. I am not favouring anyone here. Please give me proof that it was us who declared war on them. I would love to see it. There were thousands of them. Enough to fill so many bags of their fangs. Fangs alone. Please think about how many human teeth you would need to fill a bag. I am not saying that my family hasn’t achieved great things. What I’m saying is that they have never stopped to ask for their names or listen to their stories. My mother may have been something of an idol to me, but that does not exclude the fact that she has killed other mothers. She killed children.”

“Vampire children. Who could have grown up and murder us all when we may have offered them mercy. We have offered to cut their claws and extract their fangs painlessly.”

“But that’s wrong. That’s the equivalent of cutting a prey bird’s claws and beak. How do you expect them to feed?”

“…Yunho…You are losing your mind. Has the devil pierced through your head?”

“No. Disagreeing on something does not mean that one of us is insane. I want. To know. What happened. Years ago. Until then I believe that both parties are equally good and equally evil. Please do not force me into politics.”

The baron stood up while wiping his hands. He glimpsed at his unfinished plate, then at Yunho’s, who only made a mess of his meal and probably snuck in one, two bites in between the pauses of his lines.

“Yunho, I will give you time to rest. You should have told me you are feeling unwell. I will send a doctor as soon as possible. Maybe he can prescribe you something. But please, please, purify your mind. There are many beautiful places you could visit. A palace, a museum. Just stay away from Thal. I am begging you. I cannot lose you too. Where has your faith gone?”

But the baron’s voice was something less than an echo. Yunho stood up to walk him to the door. He had essays to reply to every sentence the man told him. About the doctors. About the purification of his mind. About other places and Thal. Except for the last sentence, for it was unclear to him. Faith was a concept often too vague for him to understand. To him, faith wasn’t a universal thing, for there were too many. Faith in himself, faith in God, faith in humanity. To him, it was not a matter of _where_ his faith had gone. For his faith in everything and anything was _gone_ and never to return. Faith was like a plant he’s received when he did not need one and has forgotten to water it since.

He thought that in a parallel universe where the baron didn’t love him like a son he would have already been imprisoned for speaking against the monarchy, or take him to church for many other reasons.

“I will be going to Budapest next week, so I will not be able to join you,” he said while fixing the collar of his coat. He was unable to button it up for it was also too tight for him. “But you must take care of yourself. Do not drink alcohol, and do not forget about your injections. Please expect a visit from the doctor in the next days.”

Yunho nodded, far too stunned at how perceptive the angels have been with him that day. “…Alright,” he said, seemingly disappointed, holding his breath in anticipation until the door closed. He counted three seconds, then he locked it with both the key and the chain lock. He leaned his back against the door and exhaled all the cuss and contradicting words he had to offer. For a moment he floated and his soul was crystal and bare.

He ran towards the windows to open them wide, filling his lungs with evening air and fog and anything but the smell of meat. He threw all the food away, cleared the table and washed the dishes in a desperate attempt to erase the evidence of foreign presence in his house. Only then he noticed the cake box the baron has left for him on the kitchen bench. Disgusted, he averted his eyes from it and returned to his study room, carrying his writing material in his hand. He ascended the stairs and walked the corridors with his eyes closed, reciting the names of the books he needed to search for in his mind while counting them on his fingers.

As he opened the door to the library and lifted his eyes from the floor, the flow of his breath dropped back in the pits of his lungs. In the armchair he usually read sat a young man with argent hair and auburn eyes. He was small enough to fit his entire body onto the seat, with his knees to his chest and the book resting on his thighs. He wore a white shirt with a high and ruffled collar brushing against his jaw, his hair was loosely braided and tied with a red ribbon which hung over his shoulder, and he wore a red velvet necklace with a crimson gemstone tight around his throat.

Yunho’s jaw started chattering out of sanity, his hand grasping the door handle. There was no path in hell he could take to reach his room and retrieve his pistol. He stared at the creature flicking his eyes over different words on the page, tilting his head innocently as if he was trying to decipher an abstract image. Yunho swallowed his urge to scream.

The man with white hair calmly lifted his eyes and met Yunho’s, turning the book around. “What language is this?”

Yunho’s mouth hung open. The sound of his voice blew his senses away like the sound of a firearm shot a wisp away from his ear. If Yunho was a writer he would have dedicated a poem to his voice alone. The first whisper of winter that touched his heart and dazed it frozen, but also kissed it back into beating. “I’m sorry?”

The young man stood up and walked his pale, bare feet across the red carpet at a modest distance from Yunho. “I asked you what language this is.”

With his prudence’s clock ticking its way into the last hours, Yunho’s eyes swept across the pages before uttering “Turkish,” then he met the other’s eyes again. They were dark like wilted roses in that light, but outlined by such a beautiful frame that were his eyelashes that they seemed to have the power to glow even at the darkest hour.

“Oh. Do you speak it?”

Yunho shook his head.

“It’s a beautifully designed book. I wonder what it’s about,” he said as he walked his palm across the page to smoothen it, tilting the tips of his fingers up as not to scratch the paper. He went to place the book where he took it from, then he brought his hands together at his back while walking through the endless rows of shelves. He smiled purely, stopping by every book that had a distinct spine. “And this? What language is this?”

But Yunho waited until he showed him the book. “Georgian.”

“I’ve never seen this one before. It looks beautiful,” he moved on to the next shelf, touching the gold engravings on the book’s spine with his little finger, too careful not to use his claws. “I’m impressed with the way you’ve organised everything here. By language and by colour as well. You have quite the aesthetic sense.”

“Why are you here?” Yunho asked in a fearful whisper, taking an instinctive step back when the other looked at him.

“Oh. Right,” he went back to his reading chair when he left something. In both his hands he held the sketchpad that Yunho lost at the church. “You dropped this.”

His fingers twitched to grab it desperately, clutch it to his chest and shout the name of saints as words of gratitude, but he only received it calmly, containing every hint of emotion behind clenched teeth. “Thank you.”

“I must say, you’re a terrible artist. And so is the person who has drawn in there before.”

Yunho could only smile in shame. There was a reason why nobody has had the opportunity to lay their hands on the sketchpad. “I suppose I am. But I meant…Why are you here? Surely you did not come just to return this.”

“Well no. That is not the only reason.”

“What is the other one? Have you come to kill me for trespassing?”

“I’d rather not,” he smiled at the floor, then back at Yunho. It was a dangerous smile. As pleasant as walking your hand down a rose in full bloom. It was a journey of colour and smoothness, vibrant scent and puncture wounds. “But tell me. Do you know what happens in that village at night?” Though Yunho could deduce, he shook his head. He followed him as mindlessly as a magnet. “Unfaithful men take their mistresses there to fuck them on a bed where one of my people were murdered. People meet there at night to trade illegal things. And the bodies. Let me tell you about the human bodies buried underneath vampiric sacred land. There are more than the earth could take. Not because they deserved it. But because I cannot possibly leave evidence.”

“…You?”

“Of course. No one who sets foot onto my land gets to leave alive. I too have to feed. It baffles me how nobody thought about searching for their loved ones. If they had any.” He lifted his eyes to the towering bookshelf, his eyes sparkling with joy at how no shelf has been left empty. “I miss the times when we were feared. The times when people would bring their dead friends or family as offerings. They feared that if we were to starve we would leave the village. So you can imagine that they prayed for each other to die. Very sad times.”

“And why did you let me go?”

“Because you came alone. You were armed. Casually dressed. You didn’t touch anything that wasn’t yours. I almost chose not to meet you, had you not dropped your bullet. It was such a shame you ran off like that.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No. There would have been no other way for me to make my entrance without frightening you. But you lasted longer than any other human I’ve seen.”

“Because you let me escape.”

“Yes,” he smirked, then his expression softened when he looked back at the bookshelves. “What languages do you have up there?”

“All the Indo-European ones. Every top shelf of this entire wall.”

“Is this a passion of yours? Travelling and collecting books?”

Yunho’s eyes lowered down to the floor with the weight of remembrance. He shook his head, providing no answer at first. “…No. Not mine. But I have helped in expanding it.”

“I see,” the vampire’s smile faded sympathetically, and continued his walk through the bookshelves. He admired them like works of art in a museum, not missing a single row. Though he could not see his face, Yunho could have sworn he’s heard him gasp upon seeing the spiral staircase leading to the second level of the library. He ventured upstairs as if Yunho was the one giving him a tour of his new home and he was sure to buy it. “I’ve heard your conversation with…Whoever that man was. I haven’t laughed as much in years. I have him to thank for easing my heart so. I cannot tell which awed me more, his blind faith, or the lack of patience he’s had with you while you presented facts and logic.”

“Indeed. He’s never been this quick to leave.”

“I have also never expected anyone to be so knowledgeable in our culture. Or, perhaps not knowledgeable as much as empathetic. ‘ _That’s the equivalent of cutting a prey bird’s claws and beak. How do you expect them to feed?_ ’ Isn’t that what you said?”

“It was. I believe it to be true.”

The vampire turned around when he reached the top of the stairs, staring Yunho down while he was ascending. “Tell me your name?”

Yunho looked up to meet his eyes. Gemstones of many faces, and each was a varying hue and shade of red. He was unable to look at them. “…Yunho.”

“Oh? First name only?”

It only took a vampire’s congenial smile for Yunho to understand the direction the conversation was taking. His heart was cooling in pins and needles after years of numbness. He felt fear and so much inquisitiveness that his heart translated it into something new. A form of lust and greed for something that the world so perilously fought against. “Jeong.”

Crossing his hands at his back, the vampire pivoted on his heel and jovially waltzed through the first row of bookshelves. Those on the second floor were not as well organised. It was more of a storage place for all those which did not fit into a category. “Must explain why you’re all such horrible illustrators. But I suppose that is a fair tradeoff when your entire kin is so skilled in the art of mass murdering.”

“You’re not being subtle about your intentions there.”

“I hope you know that if I had much darker intentions on my mind, there would have been no point in me waiting for you to be alone. In fact, I am starting to think that my presence here is doing you a significant favour.”

“A favour?”

The vampire glanced at the bookshelf wall in the back, and after he noticed that it was empty, he turned around and headed towards the balcony with a view to the first floor. Shelves decorated with golden leaves and flowers, sparkling like dew in the chandelier’s light. “You draw because you want to document things. Which means you want information. The fact that you are able to stand so close to me and not beg for your life when I do as little as to breathe next to you already tells me enough. No sane human would venture alone in Thal knowing that the soil has been cursed…and on the sixth day with no sun.” He walked the tip of his claw along the layer of dust on the rail, drawing a series of wavy lines. “So tell me what you want to know.”

While Yunho thought for the least morally correct answer, they made their way back to the first floor where there was much more to see. He wondered why there have ever been moments when he wished he felt something. As numb as he was, he felt as though he could do anything. Ask the most outrageous thing and give his last breath happily, and after his burial he would dance his way into the afterlife, joyful that he owned a truth that only a god would own. But before he would, he realised he was still human. Naïve and curious. “What do you have to gain from this?”

“A conversation. I need nothing more.”

Yunho smirked at first, then it widened into a smile, and then into a quiet laugh. The vampire smiled along. “Ah, so you are expecting me to slip.”

“I am.” The vampire looked towards the door, and as he did, his eyes picked the sight of the study desk. There lied a thin pile of papers entirely filled with words, and books with different small items used as bookmarks. The title page of the essay read ‘ _The Vampire As Seen Through the Metaphorical And The Metonymic Lens_ ’. “Is this yours?”

“It is. I’ve yet to finish it.”

“Terrible handwriting as well. Though the title does enchant me. How much is there left to work on it?”

“Two days perhaps, though if you could provide me with the research I need, maybe I could finish it tomorrow.”

“I would love to see your mind at work. Do you except to publish this essay?”

Yunho heaved out a mocking laugh, placing the sketchpad back into its old place, then looking through the pages of his essay. “Not at all. I would be surprised if even one historian read it. This essay would be considered a rebellious act of the same magnitude as claiming irreligion during a liturgy. If my name had not been given legal immunity, I would have not been able to write this.”

“Well aren’t you lionhearted, challenging the sword at your throat just to bring a vampire justice.”

“…I believe it was the baron who once told me that our minds are all we have sometimes, but it was like entrusting a little child with a knife and taking his innocence for granted. I have taken this to a tier he did not expect, and now he believes that the devil is at hand.”

“But how does that feel, truly? To feel differently and for people to think that there is always the devil at hand?”

“Sometimes it’s frightening. And other times there is power in this. One that plants fear and doubt in other people’s minds. Everyone was guilty. And the church was the rain that washed the blood on the streets. You wanted to survive…and so did we. But it’s all been done in a terrible way. And for that I regret every moment in which I have blindly believed things. But they translate this regret as conspiring with the devil,” Yunho wanted to continue with one more sentence, but glanced at the clock above his desk, and clicked his tongue in displeasure. “Excuse me for a moment.”

The vampire nodded, slightly taken aback when Yunho left him alone in the room so suddenly during a conversation. After a short moment, he returned wiping his hands with a white towel, then went to the room that was connected to the library. Having been given no instructions to not follow, the vampire went after him. Yunho was sitting at a table with a health kit in front of him. There was a sealed syringe, bottles of sterilised water and rubbing alcohol, and a vial with a white powder inside. Yunho closed his eyes and took a deep breath before injecting himself.

“Are you ill?”

Yunho held his reply until he pulled the needle out, leaning back into his chair as he pressed the cotton ball against the puncture. “No,” he sighed. “Though if you need to feed on me, please find someone else.”

The vampire chuckled from somewhere behind him. “A simple bite cannot kill you.”

Yunho smiled uncertainly. He wished he could take his word as the truth. Silent moments passed in which Yunho stared off into the distance at the vampire’s shadow. He was comfortably strolling around the room, picking and studying items that grabbed his attention. Yunho tossed away the soaked cotton ball and pulled his sleeve down. He saw the vampire by the chess table inspecting the red crystal pieces. Clenching and unclenching his fists, Yunho grasped his heart between his teeth and approached him. “Can you play?”

The vampire nodded. “Would you like to?”

Yunho nodded, inviting him to sit down. The pieces on his side were carved in white crystal. He crossed his legs, hands propped together against his knee. “May I ask for your name first?”

Smirking, the vampire looked down at his set of pieces, then pushed forward a pawn with the back of his claw. He tucked his long hair behind his ear, then sat back with his elbow on the armrest, also crossing his legs. “Yeosang.”

Yunho also moved his outermost pawn, gazing into the chess table as through a clear sea, white in the sunlight, but waves dark. The king and queen’s crowns were tainted in shades of red. “Just Yeosang?”

“…Just Yeosang.”

“Do vampires not have other names?”

“We do, but if the first member who bore this name has died, the name is buried with them. Therefore I only have this name now.”

“Really…I didn’t know,” Yunho moved his knight on the opposite side of the board as Yeosang did. He was more invested in the conversation than he was in the game, although his mind responded ecstatically to everything that surrounded him. He’s never dreamt he would ever touch that board again. “And how is this perceived?”

“It’s shameful. Although in my case it happened during a time where shame was the least of our fears.”

Yunho touched the tip of the piece he wanted to move next, but has lost the rest of his strategy when he understood Yeosang’s tone. He moved the knight right beside Yeosang’s pawn for him to easily take it. “It has something to do with my family, I take it.”

Yeosang noticed what Yunho was trying to do, but to him pity was the weakest form of currency. He held his chin into his palm, head slightly tilted, tapping his own temple with his claw. He picked his queen and moved it three rows diagonally. “Keep your knight. You will need it.”

The game advanced in utter silence for the next minutes. They both played defensively, and they both smiled behind their hands that covered their mouths. They both had the same thought. When one advanced, the other retreated one step, as if they were dancing. At most times silence was a god’s gift to Yunho, but in that moment his heart did not feel at peace. He was able to switch the game in the direction he’s been wanting it to go, but he did not feel any sense of accomplishment. His mind was immersed within the match, but his eyes always found Yeosang at the end of him making his move. Even the historians who despised vampires so much have dedicated paragraph over paragraph to how beautiful vampires were. They were figures of universal beauty masking the devil’s face.

Yunho placed the conversation within Yeosang’s hands. If he did not want to take the piece he offered, he offered him a question. Any question he wanted. “Is it just you in this house?”

Yunho smiled right away when Yeosang finally took a piece from him. “I live with a friend, but he is away at the moment. But if you mean my family, then they’ve been gone for-”

“Three years,” he looked at where Yunho’s pieces stood, and he predicted he was two moves away from threatening his king, so he chose to castle before that would happen.

Yunho arched his eyebrow, leaning forward with his elbows against his knees, rethinking his strategy. He smirked. “You knew?”

Another set of quiet moves followed. Yeosang became uncertain of what Yunho was trying to accomplish so he’s decided to hasten the game by gradually taking pieces from his side of the board. “I was there. I’m not as young as I look. Also… _check_. It’s _mate_ in the next two moves if you’re not careful.”

Yunho moved all of his pieces away from the course of Yeosang’s queen, and instead of moving the king away, he pushed it forward towards the red light of Yeosang’s piece. “Take it. And tell me what happened.”


	2. Blood's Petrichor

It was during the hour when even the moon could not bear awakeness and lucid dreams wrote themselves. Minutes after the wind blew the rainclouds north and the last drops knocked at sills and windows. It was the end of the seventh day with no sun.

Yunho let himself fall onto the chair’s cushiony backrest, hissing at the sudden ache in his back. He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, and stood up to stretch himself after hours of sitting at the desk and writing. His mind was too frenzied to write on the original paper, so he laid his ideas down on the draft paper, where he allowed himself to make spelling mistakes.

The night before he fell asleep at the same time as the sunrise. He had a book in his hands, he recalled, and in his drowse he thought he saw Yeosang taking the book from him and looking through it, and in the next memory the book was back in his hold. Yeosang lied down in bed with him, whispering things that he, in his somnial daze, could not understand. But that morning— or late afternoon, he was alone. The first thing he looked at was the chess table, exhaling relieved that it had all been real.

He left his room to go have his first proper meal of that day. It might have been a yet unidentified health issue of his, but he has forever been able to satisfy his hunger with water only. He’s gone days without eating. No scent and no flavour was appetising for him to consume something gluttonously. But sometimes, on days with sun, the smell of fresh fruits made him forget he’s ever felt sorrow.

His legs dragged him down the first flight of stairs, almost against his mind’s accord. Food has never been a reason good enough for him to stop working, but there have been times when a strange taste overcame his tongue. The taste of something inedible, like a substance or a mixture of something used in the medical field.

Sounds of creaking wood came from downstairs, filtered too poorly to his foggy mind for him to feel anything. As he reached the second flight of stairs, he yawned his lungs out, covering his mouth with his palm, and when he opened his eyes, his heart gasped with him upon seeing Yeosang at the bottom of the stairs about to make his way up. “You startled me.”

Yeosang wore a different shirt than the other day underneath a black vest with embroidered red lilies. He also looked at Yunho with wide eyes, clutching a postcard to his chest. “I found this by the front door.”

Yunho looked at the iris painted on the postcard, his anger simmering at his temples thinking it was something from the baron, but softened right away when he flipped it over and recognised Jongho’s handwriting.

_Hyung, as this is the seventh day with no sun, the church is becoming more tumultuous. Because of this, we are not allowed to leave yet. I am alright, lessons are going well, and I even had time to go sightseeing today, but I’m not sure we will be allowed to walk at night again. I’m the one who chose to stay here, so please don’t worry about me. But you have to stay safe. Please be careful. You’re always in my prayers. -Jongho_

“Is this the boy who lives here with you?”

“…Should have known you’ve read it.”

“I’ve noticed it right when I arrived. I couldn’t help it. It is reassuring to know the church still holds us in such high regard. I haven’t even settled in and they’ve already sent word to Vienna, and preparing for another ‘apocalypse’.”

“Is that where you’ve been today?”

“Yes. Lurking around the cathedral. It’s much easier to gather information now that I have a place to hide.”

“Who said you could hide in my house?”

“You aren’t about to banish me now, are you? I’d feel hurt after how we’ve bonded last night.”

“I won’t banish you. Just don’t get yourself tangled in the church’s web. They have eyes where they shouldn’t.” Yunho placed the postcard beside an old family portrait and opened the cupboard in search for anything that was quick to consume. “Say, is blood all you eat?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you eat regular food? The baron brought cake the other day, and I was about to throw it out-”

“I’ll have it,” Yeosang said right away, already beside him, his eyes sparkling at the softness of the chocolate sponge cake. Yunho served both slices on a gold ringed plate, then wrapped a handkerchief around the cake fork. But as soon as the tip of his finger touched the silverware, Yeosang withdrew his hand, holding it to his chest and gritting his teeth in sudden pain.

Yunho leaned a gentle hand on his shoulder, and taking his wounded hand with the other. “That was silver, wasn’t it? I should have known. I should have asked you first,” Yunho held Yeosang’s palm into his. Across his forefinger there was a line with sutured appearance, mildly swollen and red. Yunho squeezed his hand out of frustration, then rushed to fetch the vampire a compress.

“You know this is nothing, right?”

“If it was, then you wouldn’t have reacted that way.”

“My tolerance has decreased over the years, but I promise it’s fine,” was his way of saying that the compress was as ineffective as water over a burn, but his hand lied too comfortably within Yunho’s for him to say anything else. The corners of his lips twitched upwards while looking at the blue of Yunho’s veins on his wrist. His hand was not much larger than his own, his nails unusually ivory and his skin just as cold. “You’re a fool, you know that?” He asked, smiling warmly, “Tending to a vampire’s wound as you would with a human.”

“I know. I call myself a fool every day.” He held Yeosang’s hand for a moment more until his fingers stopped spasming, then he stood up and went to hide the silverware in a place where he would forget about, and went to retrieve the old set of porcelainware.

“There’s purity in you too. But I am not sure where it springs from.”

Yunho could think of a place, but he was not in the right mindset to turn his chamber of memories upside down with the responsibility of cleaning things up himself. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“Will you not have any?”

“No. I don’t like sweets that much,” he sat down on the kitchen bench, spreading a generous layer of herb butter on a thin loaf of sunflower seed bread.

“You seem quite awake for an hour like this.”

“I like being asleep when the city is awake. My mind works best at night. Also, oversleeping is something that my parents have tried to unteach me my entire life, but they’ve never succeeded. Today that doesn’t present a problem anymore.”

Yeosang hummed, propping his temple against his knuckles. He had forgotten what sweet felt like on his tastebuds. The taste awakened such joyous memories that he wanted to consume it ravenously, but his mind was too preoccupied with why Yunho ate with that much disgust. “And have you written tonight, since you slept so much?”

“I have…somehow.”

“Well now that I’ve received the payment, I suppose I could spare a night and help you with your research.”

“I was not aware there was payment involved. Unless you’ve stolen something while I was asleep.”

“I meant the cake.”

“That’s the payment?”

“Yes.”

“Never would have thought a vampire would be so easy to satisfy.”

“Oh, what do you know about satisfying me?”

“Too little. But I am open to more lessons.”

Yeosang covered his mouth as he laughed, tipping his head back. “Some nerve we have after a single chess game.”

“It’s the hour’s fault. Or the moon sleeping on the other side. I would never lie to her.” Yunho fluttered his hand in the air, brushing his next thought away. He left the water to boil while he prepared the tea set, then became indecisive about which tea he wanted, for he wanted neither. The fruit infusion one was his least favourite, but it was the closest thing to sweet he had, so he went with that for the sake of his guest.

“These lessons won’t be cheap, you know,” Yeosang looked Yunho’s profile, drawing him with answers to the enigmatic elements on his face. He stood up holding the plate in his hand, then lifted the spoon with a small piece of cake up to Yunho’s lips. At first he startled, then he grimaced, and in the end he accepted the offer. There were signs on his face and voice that indicated tiredness. He had been the same the previous night.

“Name your price, then,” Yunho said, going about his tea business.

Yunho was like a bell jar. The subtlety of his emotions was as grand as a speck of dust. There was no music in his voice although the sound of it was warm and conforming. His questions sounded just like his statements, the way he apologised sounded like he was reading. There was no undertext in the way he spoke. He was nonfiction. Yeosang had barely discovered him and his lack of expression frustrated him. “I answer one question. And then you answer one. But you also have to bring me sweets every so often. And you may auction more on the way if you want.” he smiled, deceiving Yunho into eating another bite. And another, until he finished the entire slice.

“Makes me wonder what kind of business you’ve been doing so far,” Yunho picked the tray with the tea set and the sugar bowl and carried it to his study. “Alright. I’ll accept this time.”

Yeosang trailed behind him, hands loosely at his back, delving into him in detail. He looked like an idealised version of someone immortalised through artwork. He was tall and well proportioned, his posture was as elegant as the emperor’s guards, and he was handsome. His facial features told the longest story. There were unspoken languages behind his eyes, shrouded in ciphers. Beneath his lips there was a vault of riddles of past events that the church paid so much to keep intact, and as Yeosang walked alongside him, he’s realised how he’s never wanted anything more. Yunho’s life was indeed valuable. He was like a crucifix at the head of one’s bed meant to protect people from evil when he himself believed in nothing. But in Yeosang’s eyes he was a relic, a vessel perfect for his ascension to the crown he’s once lost.

Back in his room, Yunho sat in his armchair reading the same children’s book while Yeosang proofread his essay. In his other hand he held the cup of tea, still full and long forgotten. As he advanced, his heart beat at wild paces. He knew things that only a _Jeong_ would know. He’s read every sentence twice, stunned at the clarity and eloquence. He felt as though he was being stripped of his clothes and skin and name.

When he finished the third page, he took a sip of his tea and put the paper down. “Ask,” he demanded, his eyes flashing scarlet, but his back was facing Yunho. He swiped his tongue across his fangs.

“Is it alright?”

The question came with less hesitance than Yeosang predicted. He calmed himself, took his cup and went to join him at the reading table. “Yes. Although I am not sure how to feel about the extensive knowledge about my kind."

Yunho closed his book and added half a teaspoon of sugar into his tea when it had cooled down. “You do sound much angrier than before, so if I’ve offended you, I’d rather you said that.”

“You haven’t. I just know that some of those things you’ve written came directly from a vampire’s mouth. Things that no one would share unless under the fear of torture…You see where I’m going with this.”

“…I do. I will rewrite it.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t blame you for knowing things. I blame the person who has documented these in the first place. You’ve left off at a part about blood drinking. Not enough material on that, I take it.”

“There is, but not the kind I am looking for. There’s something about blood drinking that I can’t fully grasp. It’s much more than feeding, I feel.”

“Really,” Yeosang leaned his chin against the heel of his palm. “What else do you think it is?”

Yunho hummed in thought, staring into the glimmering chandelier’s crystals. There was a circle of white light in his eyes. A string of glow as through a keyhole to the place where he kept his purity as a human. His affective side and his ability to react emotionally. “I think…Why blood? When you came into existence, why did God think to make you feed on blood?”

Yeosang burst out in a short fit of laughter, one hand over his mouth, and waving the other one apologetically. “Dear, you really think God made us?”

“I do,” Yunho replied right away with so much certainty, that Yeosang felt almost guilty for laughing. “Jongho once told me that everything in existence was made by God, and everything God made was created to be good. Even if some things have decayed into evil. You look like us and communicate like us. Vampires were outlined from humans. Then…things happened. Celestial wars, existentialist rebellions. And now you’ve come to be associated with the undead. And people think that the devil fathers you all because you feed on-” Yunho stopped himself with a soft intake of breath. The gasp of epiphany and knowledge, and love for the new. “Oh.”

“You’ve realised it all on your own. Well done.” Yeosang smiled. Wider when Yunho finally looked at him. Those cursed, stone eyes. “People murder us out of fascination. We touch upon their fear of death and people wish to steal it in envy of our longevity. What more could a human want, than to live through decades as strong and beautiful as when they flourished in youth? We are the embodiment of things you could only hope to own, and you have been given the power to take it from us. But then, this backfired, didn’t it?— Tell me, if one day you woke up with blood on your hands, but the rest of you was clean, what would your first thought be?”

A cold shiver snaked up Yunho’s spine. “…I guess I would ask myself whose is it.”

“Exactly. Blood isn’t only an item or a symbol for life. It’s a person as well. It’s not only ‘drinking that person’s blood’, but ‘drinking that person in, with memories and everything that makes them who they are’.”

Springing up from his seat, Yunho rushed to his desk to get his pen and notebook, impatiently scribbling down row after row, abbreviating every word just so the thought won’t leave him. From where he stood, Yeosang saw everything from the messy handwriting to the distance between the letter ‘I’ and the dotting. He parted his lips in surprise at how Yunho wrote everything Yeosang had said earlier, word by word. “I see. Robbing someone of their identity. There’s so many sides to this. It’s interesting. And how does thirst feel for you? Does it hurt?”

“It does. It comes in slow, but it is painful. And the more you deny it, the more the more unbearable it becomes. But the pleasure of blood drinking is an easily forgettable one. This is why the pain is worth it. All for the euphoria and the rapture that comes from healing it.”

“Rapture,”

Yeosang smiled, looking at the pink glimmers of light reflected in his tea. He ran his claw across the golden rim of the cup as he considered his next words. His body reacted naturally when Yunho looked at him, even when their eyes failed to meet. “Yes,” he stood up, ambling his way to Yunho while dragging his claws across the table. He reached for the hand in which Yunho held the pen, trailing his way up from his wrist to his palm, then placing the item back on the table. “There’s no rule that says we only drink blood to feed. Sometimes we do it to appease our carnal needs too.”

His mouth agape in enthralment, Yunho became unaware of his corporeality the more lines Yeosang touched on his palm. “You do?” The side of his claws grazed along his joints as their fingers intertwined, and the nature of his existence wrote another theory of evolution.

“We do. Would you like to know what it feels like?” Yeosang offered, leaning his hands on Yunho’s shoulders, gently pushing him back as he settled comfortably on his lap. It was his right knee, then a vague look of approval, then his other knee followed by the weight of his body on his thighs. So many seconds in which Yunho could have denied him, but the vampire’s eyes were sharpened daggers, and he was only livestock.

Yunho’s hands levitated above the small of his back, then hips, unsure of where to rest them and keep them unburned. He withdrew them cautiously at first, but his breath caught in his throat when Yeosang grabbed his wrists and placed them on his hips. Through the haze in his eyes he looked at the vampire’s lips, rose-coloured and stitched with immortality. The last words they’ve exchanged flew off the chute of his memory as the tips of his fingers touched the vampire’s cheek. “Do you think you could make me feel something?”

“I could. And I would do it well too,” he said, gently cupping Yunho’s face. His lips arched into a smile of many faces, and the way he caressed the apples of his cheeks gave nothing away.

Yunho swallowed the lunar embers that rained down from Yeosang’s eyes straight into the essence of his being. He drank fire like it was water. He felt his soul tear from the rest of him and caged in between clawed fingers. “I thought you wanted sweet things in return,”

His lips became a path buried under snow when Yeosang touched them. “I do,” he caressed them tactfully, putting the words behind them to sleep, and robbing him of language completely when their lips finally met. His breath formed rainclouds in his lungs, his hands seeking comfort around Yeosang’s hips when his first impulse was to feel afraid and vulnerable. He poured feeling and sense into the kiss, taking Yeosang’s gentleness for granted although he could any second tilt his head and thrust his fangs into his throat. His hands travelled up to the vampire’s waist, so thin and frail that if he pressed into him just a little he could split him in half.

Yeosang carded his fingers through his hair, delving to take his lips in fully. His claws drew shivers into Yunho’s scalp, like the first waves before a sea storm. He kissed him and cradled his head as if he was lullabying him into unconsciousness, then his skull and chest would tear open and Yeosang would pluck his soul like a basil flower and conjure it free of sorrow. _Break me_ , he wanted to say to him as he looked in his eyes. _Break me and make me feel something._ So Yeosang kissed him again, pressing their mouths together until their lips would go white and bloodless. Then he kissed the corner of his mouth and jaw, paving himself a way to where Yunho’s blood streamed the quickest. “Don’t,” he whispered, taking Yeosang by the arms although it hurt him, softly panting.

“Why? Are you scared?” Yeosang read his expression patiently, making no sudden move to break out of Yunho’s hold.

“No, I just…” Yunho swallowed his next words. He sled his hands down Yeosang’s arms until he found his wrists, holding them daintily. He looked towards the drawer where he kept his injections, then turned his eyes away from it.

Quick to observe his every move, Yeosang looked in the same direction. There has never been an inkling of bloodlust in him ever since he’s met Yunho. He was still wondering why he was so obedient to his plea not to bite him. “…Does it have anything to do with those injections you’re taking?”

Dropping his forehead on Yeosang’s chest, Yunho sighed shamefully. “Yes,” he mumbled with a hint of frustration. His fingers were fully wrapped around the vampire’s wrists. “And I don’t know whether it will hurt me or you. Or both. I would rather not take this risk.”

Yeosang’s fingers jerked with the sudden urge to sharpen his claws. Anger born from uncertainty simmered in the pit of his heart. Yunho spoke to him affectionately and leaned his entire weight on his chest like they were long lost soulmates. He paced through life with so much control over his self-destructive tendencies that Yeosang started to believe that every apocalyptic sign occurred because Yunho had allowed it. At times he looked at Yeosang with such calm and blank eyes that even the vampire forgot he had the ability to kill him if he wanted to. But above all this was the nerve Yunho had to embrace him as if he felt anything. “Who the hell are you to protect me?” Yeosang murmured, grasping Yunho’s collar andyanking him up, forcing their eyes to meet. “Why would you care? You know nothing about me. Who do you think you are to put such high value on my life?”

Yunho touched his hands gently like one would when making a promise, although Yeosang was moments away from choking him. His eyes were a blank page, a cloudless sky, a mind in aftershock. “Hurting you won’t benefit me,” he said when Yeosang’s eyes have reached their brightest red he’s ever seen. He valued the vampire’s life, but he also valued his own. Yeosang was the first to react when his claw pierced through the collar of his shirt, pulling himself away and looking at his hands as if he had committed a crime, but Yunho remained his apathetic self, massaging the sides of his neck where he felt most pressure. “Also, I’ve never known how to price life. I don’t know what you’ve been through to get here. I don’t know about your struggles. Although I feel a bit conflicted,” he smiled to himself. He smiled with his lips and cheeks and eyes. He lifted himself up and opened the first button of his shirt to make his collar look decent again. “I couldn’t care less who you are, and yet you interest me so much that I’d let you kiss me again.”

Staggering back until he hit the edge of the table, Yeosang watched him with shocked eyes; trapped in the maze behind Yunho’s irises.

In the great silence that fell upon them when Yunho touched his cheek again, Yeosang fell into the illusion of a human life about to close his eyes before repenting.

Three years ago Yeosang awakened at the scent of his sibling’s blood. An ocean’s graveyard of wails and sobs, with his cheek pressed into a cage’s bars, a child crying to his chest, and smoke arising from his skin after beatings in silver. He covered the child’s eyes although he was soaked in blood up to the throat, and cried in silence. While Yeosang remembered this, Yunho touched his velvet necklace, then drew a vertical line with his forefinger down to his collarbones.

He touched him too lovingly and innocently for all the vampiric blood his parents raised him on.

With a quick glance, Yunho asked for permission. Yeosang didn’t understand yet for what, but he leaned his back against the table, tilting his chin slightly skyward. Somehow, Yunho has never looked taller. He bit back a smirk when the first button of his shirt came undone, flicking his tongue over his fangs.

“He called me beautiful, and then he let me go,” Yeosang said darkly, driving his eyes upon his with a medusean power. Yunho’s hands froze while parting the folds of the vampire’s shirt. Across his chest there was a clean red line, but every bit of curiosity in him curtailed down to the words he spoke. Or the single word that made his breath ebb back into his lungs. _He_. Any and every man he’s ever met. Could have been any man in the world. But he excluded the possibility of that person being anyone else. _He_ was like a name with a notorious history of vampire killing. _He_. “And then he said that if I let him touch me he will let the others go as well…Of course he didn’t,” Yunho listened closely, slaving himself to his words. “Weeks have passed, and no one escaped from him. He kept them in cages like livestock although he had already taken their fangs away. He chained me with silver and used me to pleasure himself. And then I begged him to at least kill them quickly and painlessly. But he treated them like objects of his own entertainment. He laughed when children cried, and he left them all to starve for weeks. He placed blood banks just outside their reach and left them there forgotten. I heard them at night. Squirming and sobbing and screaming my name,” he shuddered, breathing in so sharply that he felt the sudden compulsion to cover himself. Yunho swept the silver locks away from Yeosang’s forehead, and in his eyes he saw two glassy red moons. “He fucked me while my siblings were begging me to kill them. In their eyes I have been subdued to a murderer when I was meant to be a saviour. The door was open. And the window was open. And out of anger, he killed them one by one and fed me their blood. He poured their blood down my throat and then he threw me into the same room. But I let him. It broke me, but I let him. I feel nothing. The screams have never stopped. Their voices broke me more than it broke them. For so many moons…But one night three years ago I escaped from him. It was the night after the screams had stopped. All at once. It was so quiet and empty. The house and that prison. It was like nothing had ever happened. There was blood. The room was deluged in blood. And I was alone.”

“…Alone?”

It was as if Yeosang had grabbed silence by its throat and held it over the verge of hearing. An aural darkness enveloped the walls and ceiling, the lights seemed to flicker in their eyes alone, and when silence had met its demise, Yeosang wrapped his arms around Yunho’s neck, chest to chest. “Alone.”

With no warning sign, Yunho wrapped Yeosang’s legs around his hips, shoving his hands underneath his thighs and carrying him to the bed, laying him down onto the red silken bedsheets. He was light with little flesh and his wrists were so thin that Yunho could cuff them in one hand. “Why were you alone? What happened to him?”

The red in Yeosang’s eyes was the blood grazing the side of a blade, and raindrops that slept on roses’ petals. It was the closest thing to tears that Yunho has seen in years. “Has anyone ever told you that you look nothing like him?”

Tightening his grip around Yeosang’s wrists, Yunho leaned down and kissed him, searching the skin of his chest, spreading his fingers wide across the hills of his ribs. He released him and opened last button of his shirt, parting the fabric away to reveal shimmering skin laced by lines of red burns all across his stomach and chest and far beyond his shoulders. With his thumb nail he lifted the velvet necklace enough to show the burn scars underneath it. Yeosang quivered when he looked down at his body, having forgotten that there were more burns than healthy skin. He tipped his chin up, slapping his palms over his eyes, locks of hair tightly between his fingers. He gritted his teeth and hissed at the painful memory unraveling itself out of his control. Yunho had hoped that at least that part of the story wasn’t true. But if the price he had to pay for information was his body, then he was willing to give it.

Yunho kissed him for as long as he was permitted to. He kissed him all over, every patch of skin and burn, gently swiping the tip of his tongue across the red line just underneath his nipple. He kissed him with grief, until Yeosang’s soft sighs and whimpers flooded the room for him to drown himself and never breathe silence in again. When his consciousness fell down the cliff of _three years ago_ , he ridded himself of every piece of fabric that bound him and wrapped his arms around Yeosang’s thin frame, kissing him from his lips to a place that made his throat form sounds he’s never heard a man make before. Yunho buried his eponymous heirloom in the aftertaste of blood on Yeosang’s tongue and deserted the sorrow of him in the white marks the vampire’s claws left on his back.

He wanted something to burn him like silver burned Yeosang, and even more. To descend into the rapture of his fangs and begin a new life where he did not have to remember. A life as an overhuman with the power to make the devil weep in spitefulness that he’s made a creature of the night moan so beautifully underneath him.

Unhallowed tears dripped down Yeosang’s temples, and Yunho grabbed his cheeks and tilted his head to watch the stain sizzle into his hairline. “Am I hurting you?” He asked, burying his nose to Yeosang’s neck and kissing him over his necklace. He smelled like the fearful winter clothed in fog.

“No,” Yeosang panted softly, wiping a tear with the heel of his palm, and wrapping his legs tightly around Yunho until his hips pressed agains the back of his thighs. It hurt, but right where it should. “But you can if you want to. I deserve it-” he attempted, but Yunho kissed his next words away. Perhaps he deserved it, but not in that moment.

There was something about the way Yeosang embraced him that reminded him of the love of his first life. A feeling so distant that he never knew he missed, like that of being cherished, but not loved. Affection in the guise of pity. He scratched him fairly to rip his layer of apathy apart, and when that armour would shed, a first tear fell right onto Yeosang’s cheek while they kissed. A tear that charred Yeosang into awakeness. “Yunho, look at me,” his hands reached through the euphoric fog in his eyes to cup his cheeks. “What’s wrong?” He looked at him with hooded yet weeping eyes, and for the first time that night, he kissed him with a smile on his lips. He held him by the back of his head and rolled his hips far slower, cradling Yeosang fully into his arms when the vampire linked his ankles across his back.

“I need,” Yunho moaned into his ear, yanking his head back and placing an open-mouthed kiss on his neck “I need to tell you something before I wake up.”

Yeosang suppressed his carnal impulse to thrust his fangs in him with such ardour that he almost nearly called upon divinity. “Tell me what,”

“…My brother’s always wanted to destroy beautiful things,”

Yeosang’s eyes snapped open with a force that made his tears freeze in his waterline, and before he could even heave a breath to respond, Yunho grasped his hips, lifting them entirely off the bed. He was too far from his hand’s reach, and for a moment while he stared at the prominent vein in Yunho’s throat and the waves of his pulsating blood through the hands that held him so possessively, he remained stupefied. He’s never been with anyone who would make love to him so selflessly. Yunho held him safely and he smiled fondly as to begrudge the unholy when Yeosang was thrusts away from moaning his name faithfully. When Yunho could read the orgasm in his eyes, he kissed him back into hypnosis and stroked him firmly, as faster as his moans described him.

He was melting snow over the red bedsheets, twitching at the slightest touch when Yunho wiped his stomach clean and covered him back, snowdrops blooming upon his eyelids.

Yunho went into hiding with his face buried in his chest when he felt his primitive self awaken, shamelessly seeking solace within the arms of a beast.

“You know it was me, right? The one who took him from you.” Yeosang may have said, but Yunho, in the heat of the moment, felt nothing other than his lips kissing his hair so tenderly.

But inside of him was a lot more. Too much bygone waste that no inebriation and no orgasm could cure. He was seeking solace within the arms of a murderer— was a truth that he was never going to comply to. He gave his body away, but he did so tactfully. He may have kissed the lips that drank his brother’s blood, but those lips also made such lovely sounds that made death feel sweet. “I know,”

“You poor thing,” Yeosang kissed his head once more, but then he could only smile at the irony of it all. His eyes were dilated, swimming in post-coital fire. “But now I understand why you cling to me. We’ve both been abandoned. Who else is there to turn to…So hold me. Hold me as much as you want, darling.”

“But why won’t you kill me too, then? I can tell that everything you do is for a reason.”

“Because what other greatest punishment is there for someone to live in a world where their loved ones won’t return?” He let the words linger; drip down against his ear one by one. “But, Yunho, you’re not fooling anyone. I know lust when I see it. You don’t want to die anymore. You want me like this again.”

Yunho nodded his head once.

“…Now, I must ask you, do you always give yourself to people this easily?”

“I’d give myself to anyone who wants to destroy me and make me feel good about it. So if this is what you wish to do, then take me. Have me as your plaything. Ruin me. Make it feel good or make it hurt. I could not care less. Just, please. Make me feel something.”

“Do you feel something now?”

“I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realised this one's just one massive scene.  
> Anyway. Thank you for waiting, and enjoy! ♥


	3. The Bacchant’s Tragedy

Within a small satchel Yeosang kept the ring that Yunho had dropped back at the church. He opened it for the first time since, unsure why he has never given it back. He found it ugly, and above that, it was made of silver. He poked it around with the end of a pen, looking for the inscriptions and secret carvings, but in the end he shoved the satchel back inside his pocket and went about his day.

Yunho was currently in his study, much like every other day at that hour of the evening. That day he woke up early and went to buy Yeosang an entire box of crescent-shaped vanilla cookies before locking himself in his room for the next hours.

It took Yeosang three doors to finally find Yunho’s room. His main bedroom, that is. The one he hardly ever used because it was too far from his study room. The canopy bed was even bigger than the one they had slept in the recent nights, with red curtains wrapped around the dark, marble pilasters, crimson bedsheets and black fur covers. Yeosang crawled on his palms and knees to the centre of the bed, sinking his face into the plush pillows and spreading his fingers through the fluffy blanket. The room was colder than the ones he frequented, and it was lacking in furniture pieces. Yeosang was about to move onto the next room, but the wardrobe stirred his curiosity. There was a boring amount of white shirts and dark coloured vests, winter coats and dress shoes with a tragic amount of dust on them. Yeosang undressed himself while walking his eyes over the shelves of shirts in search for one with no ruffles around the sleeves or collar. He laughed when he dressed himself and noticed how it almost fit him like a dress. But the feeling of wearing something so loose around his frame was surprisingly liberating, so he threw his old clothes onto the bed and moved on.

In passing, he shoved another postcard from Jongho under the study door after he finished reading it. It was the third one the boy had sent that week, and Yeosang was grateful that he kept them up to date. In the next week the church had apparently plotted to bless the rain in case there was going to be one gentle enough. Yeosang smirked mockingly, mumbling the contents of the postcard to himself while skipping his way down the stairs. He slept with Yunho enough times to extend his lawful immunity to him as well. And as days went by, it became more than that. He helped Yunho with his injections although it was against his will, and on the rare occasions when he left the door open, Yeosang brought him tea. He devoured every book that Yunho placed in his hands at an inhuman speed, and even pestered Yunho to translate him short sentences in Hungarian for him to relearn it.

However, despite all these moment, Yunho still cried behind locked doors. Sometimes he cried so much that he would pass out with his temple against his desk and a tear-soaked handkerchief in his hand.

Yeosang knew why he cried. But unfortunately, if he could turn back time, he would have placed the decapitated heads of the _Jeongs_ and their allies on wooden pikes and build a fence around Thal, with Yunho’s brother displayed honourably right in the centre of the path. He would have burned their complex of houses down and force Yunho into eviction, and he would have probably murdered him too.

But at present, Yunho crying in his arms was his punishment. Yunho calling his name and kissing him with his salty lips and not once having blamed him was his punishment. A life of indoctrination in the hell of human emotions, burdened with the grief of a mourning man was also part of his punishment.

“I wish things would amuse me these days like they did years ago,” Yunho said while kissing Yeosang’s naked shoulder before covering him.

“Amuse you?”

“Yes. I wish I was still able to laugh like I once did. I miss that feeling. When I was younger, I could make a joke out of anything. I thought laughing was the greatest form of therapy. People had enough of my antics too quickly, but they still laughed. I loved making a fool of myself just for the purpose of others’ joy, you know.”

“…Why past tense? You’re still a fool.”

It was the widest Yunho had ever smiled, but the sorrow hidden behind that smile was so tactile that it kept Yeosang awake for hours. It was as if Yunho had once been told to mourn for as long as his soul needed to lose its substance. Like there was the vengeful spirit of his brother always blowing the joy away from his eyes each time he felt anything that wasn’t wistful.

One morning after Yunho cried himself to sleep, a pitiful thought arose in Yeosang’s mind. The side of him that had once been pure hearted had cracked like a glass ball, and for a moment of weakness, he wanted to offer Yunho an apology. But upon contemplation over the matter during his hours alone, he’d realised that Yunho had also been punished, but for something he had never committed. His intention to ask for forgiveness had shifted into something that would rightfully spite the vengeful spirits of his family that haunted him. _Make me feel something_ , he remembered Yunho’s plea, finally understanding what he had meant.

Yeosang skipped gingerly through the crimson-carpeted corridors with the cookie box in his arms. Most doors on that floors had been locked with a key that had been tossed away, but the room that sparked Yeosang’s interest the most was the golden double door right next to the balcony. It had a thick marble frame carved like corinthian columns.

He heard the creak from Yunho’s door from the floor below, but at the moment he was too preoccupied to bother himself with him. He ate the second half of the crescent cookie, licking the granulated sugar off his thumb while opening the door with his elbow. The door’s screech echoed widely across the dark room, then the soft sound of him biting half a cookie off. He could clearly see in all that darkness, but he did not trust it enough to go inside on his own. He could see the sheen of a piano in the corridor light, and a hardwood violin displayed in a glass cabinet against the wall in the back.

“What are you doing?” Yunho asked, walking in his direction. Yeosang heard him ever since he made his way up the stairs, but his sightseeing session around Yunho’s mansion gave him such a sense of peace that nothing could bother him.

When Yeosang faced him, he grabbed his chin and wiped the granulated sugar from the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t know you had a music room.”

Yunho with wet hair and flushed cheeks was a sight he didn’t know that would touch upon his heart the same way warm and sweet things did. His shirt was fully open and he wore a towel around his shoulders. “They said one is as necessary as a kitchen…But there’s nothing to see here.”

Yeosang stepped into the room nonetheless while Yunho waited for him at the door. He pressed a random key, scrunching his nose at how out of tune it was. “It’s a shame. One would only dream of owning a piano like this.”

“Can you play?”

“No, but I like sneaking into concert halls around Christmastime. They always play such nice pieces…How about you? Can you play?”

“I used to play the cello when I was ten, eleven. But things started getting dark, and I haven’t touched it since.”

“I think cello might be my favourite. Dvořák’s Cello Concerto? I would sell my soul to be able to listen to that every living day,” he sighed and took another cookie to drown his sorrow of immortality in it. He swept his eyes across the room one more time, then left. “You’ve taken a bath? I could have sworn I left you in your study.”

“I did, but I took advantage of you getting off my back.”

Yeosang scoffed, moving the cookie box away from Yunho when he reached for it. “No cookie for you,” but he underestimated the reach of Yunho’s arms.

“What happened to your clothes?”

“I left them in your bedroom. By how our recent nights have been going, I know you prefer me with nothing on, but I have this much decency in me. Thank you for lending me your shirt.”

Yunho sighed. “I have a word that would describe you well.”

“Which is…”

“… _Illecebro_.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know— What language is that?”

“You’ve been reading so much. I’m sure you’ll find out.”

“If it’s an insult I’ll cut you open.”

“It’s not. I think you might like it,” Yunho kissed his forehead and tucked his hair behind his ear. “I also think you might like it if I invited you for some wine later on tonight.”

Yeosang accepted his invitation with a modest smile, then walked away from him before his smile would betray his pride.

They sat together by the fireplace until Yunho’s hair had completely dried, scripting future conversations in their heads. They would almost never take advantage of the opportunity to exchange words. If there was nothing interesting at hand to talk about, they would both keep to themselves. Yunho, at least, and Yeosang by extension. At the ballad of the crackling fire they fell into a light sleep leaned against each other, wrapped around a blanket. Yunho hated the concept of time as much as the time hated him. It was a game these two had played for years, and the time was yet to win. He had conditioned his mind to awaken when the urban silence would reach chthonic stages and the rooms he paced through were life among ossuaries.

✝︎

The mansion Yunho lived in was like a shifting maze. At times it appeared to have three floors, other times four. There were secret doors hidden behind bookshelves and underneath carpets leading to laboratories and family treasuries, and Yeosang’s heard him mention something about an oratory on the lowest floor.

It was a house that Yunho took for granted. It was understandable, as it was a place he had seen every day of his life, but it made Yeosang feel a certain way only while walking the corridors. Each room was as spacious as a ballroom, with murals of religious paintings and other visual depictions of heaven, natural landscapes, and late Baroque paintings of joyous life. Above each door there was a gold plaque with the name of the room, but over time Yunho had removed the ones from the rooms he frequented. The main study— another architectural piece of art left abandoned, was like Vieux-Laque Room from the Schönbrunn palace. Yunho felt overwhelmed by grandiosity, so he built himself his own humble retreat from the rooms that had once been unused.

At the bottom of the main flight of stairs there were two black marble statues of goddesses. The goddess on the right wore a crown of candles, scales on her limbs, and her tongue was wrapped around a candlestick. The one on the left had wings made out of snakeheads, each holding a candle in its mouth, and the goddess held a palatial candelabra in each hand. It was Yeosang’s favourite thing to observe when he was alone. Sometimes it felt like they were looking back at him.

“Where did you say we were going?” Yeosang asked, following Yunho through the poorly illuminated corridor. That part of the house was too cold for his liking.

“Here,” Yunho said, unlocking a wooden door and pushing it open.

The sweet and sour smell of grapes sent Yeosang’s senses into a drunken daze from the first inhale. Rows and rows of wine bottle racks organised as harmonically as the books in the library, by type and brand and the country they were grown in. Dark, hardwood floor, brass candelabras shaped like rose vines against the walls, and a set of four leather armchairs— it was a room that sculptured every echo into Yunho’s name. It was dimly lit, away from the world, just like Yunho liked his comfort spaces.

“Is collecting things a tradition in your family?” Yeosang asked, crossing his hands at his back, browsing through the first rack of white wine.

“No. They’ve always appreciated wine as gifts, regardless of the occasion. But once they did, they became too attached to it to drink it. So they’ve kept them all here. Those in the front have all been gifts for my brothers’ birthdays. Every year he received so many. These right here I’ve received on my wedding day, and those in the back…Oh, I don’t know about those. Anniversary or something.”

Yeosang had to grab the bottle he was holding with both hands so he won’t drop it. He looked up at Yunho, but he had moved on to the other row. “Your what?”

“Hm?” Yunho watched him, confused. “Oh, I didn’t tell you?”

“…No. You didn’t tell me.”

Yunho took the bottle from him, shaping his lips into a smirk, proud of himself that he was able to guess which one Yeosang was going to pick. Rosé. The sweetest he owned. “Well…Remember I told you how they have never taught me to slay vampires?”

He picked two crystal glasses from the cabinet, wiping them clean with a new cloth, and invited Yeosang to sit down.

“Because of your illness.”

“..Yes. And because of this, other duties fell upon my shoulders. Such as the duty to produce an heir.”

Sometimes Yeosang’s heart beat so faintly that it became normal for him to forget he owned one. But in that moment it pulsated into his throat in the same manner that humans described the feeling of panic. “Well this is something I would have never guessed.”

“I know. It’s such a faraway memory. I’ve married the daughter of a nobleman my father was close to, and we lived together for a few years.”

Yunho effortlessly popped the bottle open, then filled both their glasses halfway through. Yeosang watched him pour, flicking his eyes from the wine’s crimson to the veins on Yunho’s wrists. It was the pause he needed to fool himself that the wine was in fact, blood. “You loved her?”

“No. She didn’t love me either. She wanted nothing to do with me. She only wanted to become a mother. And sadly, she needed me for that. But during that time I was doing other things. I was in no way as free as I am now…And then I received the news…one by one, they came too quickly. My parents…and my brother. And no one would let me mourn.They all wanted me to put the child first, and then my grief.”

Yeosang swirled the glass slowly, leaning back and taking a large sip, then drew his inner lip in to suppress his sudden urge to laugh. “Pardon my insensitivity, but how would they expect you to get it up while you were grieving?”

But Yunho was on the same page as him. He chuckled, and Yeosang became aware of his beating heart again. “It was a struggle, I’ll tell you that much. But I did it. I slept with her, everything went well, and around the time when she was five months pregnant, I found her room empty. And a letter on her bed telling me to never search for her again.”

“…I can’t tell if that’s cruel or not. She could have at least let you see the baby.”

“I- I did not want to see them. If I can be brutally honest, I had forgotten about her until you and I slept together. I remembered what it was like to be naked in front of someone else.”

“Oh, I thought you were about to offend me.”

“I would never.”

They looked at each other’s glasses instead of their own. When one would take a sip, so would the other. They gazed into the crystal, so evidently seeing opposite things. Yunho saw the ripples of the wine within Yeosang’s eyes. He hasn’t kissed him as much that day.

“I can’t fathom you married with a child. I’m sorry. My mind is unable to.”

“I know. It feels so strange. That child is going to grow up knowing I was an irresponsible father. When in reality the mother hasn’t even given me the chance to be irresponsible.”

“Oh, you’re horrible.”

“The world has made me horrible. It has succumbed me into a life of chronic unconcern and now here we are.”

Yeosang laughed with the rim of the glass against his lip, but then noticed it was empty. Yunho offered to pour him one more. “We should drink more often. You talk so much more.”

“I thought so too. I haven’t spoken this much in a while. My mouth feels tired. However, I’m sorry to tell you, but it’s your turn now.”

“To talk?”

“I told you about my,” Yunho’s face twisted in a comical way, but not in a mocking manner. It was like he had forgotten the word. “Wife. Now it’s your turn.”

“I don’t have a wife. I’ve never been married. Nor will I ever.”

“No partners at all?”

“There’s nobody for you to be jealous on, darling. No man has left his bed alive after laying with me.”

“…Just men?”

“Yes. I prefer the way they handle me better than women do. It’s such an exhilarating feeling when you give them the power to dominate you, only to steal their innocence as a human in their comedown,” he looked away from Yunho as he spoke, lifting his eyes only when he picked the bottle to refill his glass. “I’ve never given anyone the privilege to bed me a second time. Be grateful.”

“And here I was thinking I wish I didn’t have that privilege.”

“Ah, there you go again. Darling, your lack of desire to live is more vacillant than autumn weather. Make up your mind.”

Sighing, Yunho moved his glass out of his way, folding his arms over the table and burying his face in there. “I know. I hate it in here too. Sometimes I do want to. Sometimes I don’t. I know this has been hard for you too. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologising to _me_?”

“Because I know that— in your own ways, you tried to help me. To counsel and comfort me. And I’m grateful.”

“Oh, gods, are you the sentimental type of drunk? Please don’t tell me you’re the sentimental type, darling, my shirt is still drying from all the tears it soaked. _Your_ tears, might I add.”

Yunho shook his head once, then only revealed his eyes, stretching one arm across the table. Yeosang grimaced in resentment, but still took his hand. “I’m not. I’m just trying to say thank you.”

“Even though you know how much I despise this side of you?”

“…Yes. Even though. I hate it too. I’m not quite sure what to do.”

Pondering over the subject, Yeosang played with his fingers and drew circles on Yunho’s palm with his claw, surprised to see he wasn’t ticklish. Instead, Yunho closed his eyes and smiled. His beautiful face had saved him from death a number of times too grand for Yeosang to remember. “I’ve learned to put my heart in things where there isn’t any. I search for inspiration, though there is nothing I need to feel inspired for, but I like seeing things that nobody else has. Give me anything. Give me the sky, and I will tell you something about it that nobody has ever said. This is how I’ve kept my mind alive throughout these years.”

“You sound like a poet.”

“I’m not. I’m an actor who plays a poet. I am two prisms that refract light differently, and the first light will never meet the second. I am both the creator and the monster of emotion and ego with the power to destroy. And nobody will ever understand how much pleasure that brings me.”

“…Pleasure?”

Yeosang finished his glass with a bravely long sip, shaking his head out of the numbness in his brain from the sudden rush of alcohol, then clasped Yunho’s hand between his and pressed a kiss onto his fingers. “Yes. Tell me about the things that bring you pleasure.”

That was no subject that Yunho had to reflect upon. He lifted his head up, holding his chin into his palm, smiling a bit too lovingly at the sight presented in front of him. “You,”

Rolling his eyes to the back of his head, Yeosang laced their fingers together, kissing the back of his hand. “Of course, we knew that. Something else.”

“I don’t think there’s anything else. I have things that make me feel less numb, but things that bring me pleasure?…I’m not sure.”

In Yeosang’s eyes there was a subtle motion of a dagger being sheathed, with only a sparkle of the blade left out in the light. There was threat, but not enough. He grabbed the half empty bottle by its neck and stood up, seating himself in the place where Yunho’s glass once was, with his foot on Yunho’s chair, in the little space between his thighs. “And how do you feel about me being the item of your pleasure?”

“I feel as though I’ve sold my soul,” Yunho wrapped his fingers around Yeosang’s ankle, grabbing it tightly, taking in its tenderness and fineness, then glided it up to his knee. “And I’m thankful for that. I haven’t been using my soul wisely.”

“I can agree with that. Your soul is in its first stages of rotting. You must preserve it darling, feed it moon and stars and conjure so many nights around it that the world will start to think it harbours so many shadows they will start to fear you.”

“Must the world fear me?”

“If the world fears you, it will seek to understand you, but it will never cross that border. You’ll just become another mystery in the book of demoniacs. Your true nature should belong to you,” his eyes followed his claw as it grazed along Yunho’s jaw, his lips twitching when the other sighed at the sensation. “And me.”

“Have it,” Yunho tilted his head back when Yeosang’s claw scratched across his Adam’s apple, and lower until his body would split into two different worlds, and upon devouring his soul, Yeosang would become its purgatory, and the ruler of both worlds. “I would enslave my soul to you.”

He leaned his cheek against Yeosang’s thighs, wrapping his arms around his knees. His skin was deathly cold, scentless and smooth as marble. “I love fools like you so much,” Yeosang rasped, taking a long sip of wine, then wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist. The bottle started to feel heavy in his hands.

“I know you do,” Yunho chuckled, kissing Yeosang’s thigh, then took the bottle from him and drank all that was left as gluttonously as water. His heart thrashed around in his chest, warning the impending collapse of his systems like a preacher in a city of unbelievers. Wrapping his hand around the back of Yeosang’s neck, he pulled him into a slow kiss that was more tongue than lips. The vampire’s neck and shoulder was adorned with healing love bite bruises, each bearing a moan as distinguishable as a piano’s keys. His shirt had fallen off both his shoulders, secured just above his chest by a weakly clasped button.

When Yunho would kiss him like that, scarlet would flicker in Yeosang’s eyes in anticipation of so much more, but in that moment Yunho only kissed his cheek one last time, then left him there to yearn.

With absent eyes he walked through the rows of wine racks, squeezing the neck of the bottle in his hand. He flicked his fingers over the wine bottles’ finishes in passing while on the row with his weddings gifts. He picked a bottle of white wine, effortlessly flipping it in the air and catching it back by its neck. He stared at the empty wall farthest from him, then tossed the bottle with a furious groan, stunned at his own rush of adrenaline roaming through him like poison. Shards exploded like fireworks and wine spilled like a whirlwind of spring flowers against the walls and floor.

“Yunho, what’s gotten into you?” Yeosang hesitantly grabbed his arm, more confused than concerned.

Yunho freed himself from his grip, passing him another bottle. “You do it,”

“Why?”

“You asked me what bring me pleasure,” He spoke softly, and his eyes were bridges to infernal regions, scorched trees and ashen snow over black plains. They were dilated, infatuated and drunk. Drunk on love, or enamoured with the sensation of insanity and vertigo— spiralling into a pit of hedonistic fire that built him immortal from molten.

Shard upon shard flared in the firelight as it shot across the room, white wine sparkled on the stone floor, carrying dark shattered pieces and fragments into a hell’s river. Glass screeched litanies against the limestone tiles, and the room smelled like Dionysian hypnosis. Insanity in the form of pleasure.

Yunho opened another bottle, drinking voraciously as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. It was sweeter than the one they’ve had before. His hand was mildly swollen and stained pink— a rain of blood and water poured from his palm, dry and medium sweet wine that Yeosang would never come close to.

“Weren’t those the ones you’ve received on your wedding day?” Yeosang asked, picking a large shard that was almost shaped like a diamond that had fallen by the now empty rack.

Sighing, Yunho grabbed his wrist until he dropped the shard, and when he parted his lips to speak, Yunho held his first two fingers against his lips, then sled them into his mouth. He pressed down onto his tongue to prevent him from speaking, laying hold of his waist. “Suck,”

The acidic taste burned off every mention of the past off Yeosang’s tongue, filling his mouth and throat with the most horrid taste he’s ever felt. His knees buckled and tears threatened to spill, but his trembling hands gripped Yunho’s shirt desperately. His tongue fulfilled his command so zealously, sucking the sourness away from Yunho’s fingers although it hurt him. When he pulled his fingers out, Yeosang embraced him furiously, sobbing the burn in his throat into Yunho’s chest. “I hate you. I hate you so much.”

Yunho smiled as he kissed the top of his head. “You should do that again. You looked beautiful.” He tipped Yeosang’s chin up and kissed him softly, then wiped the little tear away from the corner of his eye.

“No. Never make me do that again. My throat burns.”

“If I took you to bed, would you forgive me?” But Yunho kissed his reply away with a smirk on, soothing his burns away with his tongue and lips. He kissed him until Yeosang embraced him hopelessly in the beginnings of his erotism, entrusting his body and undead soul into his arms.

✝︎

The night ascended to chthonic lengths when arousal consumed them. The Lilith in the back of their dreams feasted on their lust to devour each other. The despair to immortalise the present eclipsed the wisps of love they saw in each other’s eyes. Pure romance was such a fabricated concept to them, that each time they smiled when they kissed and when they soothed when one would hurt the other, they would look away. The potential love hidden in Yeosang’s eyes was his deadliest weapon. The only thing that Yunho genuinely feared.

Yeosang sat in his lap, looking at him with drunken eyes, caressing his cheeks, then hair, then cheeks again. He smiled so innocently, his lips twitching like he wanted to either tell a joke, either say something so embarrassingly human that he would sober him up right away. “I like…your head.”

Yunho laughed, throwing his forehead on his shoulder. “My head?”

“Yes. Your facial features are so fine and beautiful, your skin is so rich, and your hair frames your face so nicely. I like it. I like everything you have on your head.”

“Thank you. You’re very beautiful yourself. I like your head too.”

Yeosang thanked him with a short kiss on the lips, then tilted his head, wondering, and delved in for a second and a third one. It was Yunho’s turn to let him do whatever he pleased with him, but he had never expected it would be so soft and gentle. He straddled and rode him insanely slow, spoke such filthy words and moaned so obscenely when Yunho would speak to him in a degrading way. He welcomed these types of words with an open heart and fed them to the incubus in him. The path from his jaw to his shoulder was drenched in love bites and teeth marks, violet roses decorating a line of sunset. Yunho sinking his teeth into his neck was like a scorpion’s tail writing submission into his veins, then Yunho would ask him kindly if he can take him again and again, until all Yeosang would be able to utter was ‘Please’.

His cheeks were dewy and flushed, his lips swollen, the darkest they’ve ever been. Yunho caressed them gently, reminiscing over how wisely Yeosang had used them that night. He had forgotten what it was like not to smile. “Show me your fangs,” he said, kissing him so softly that he had barely touched the tips of his lips. Yeosang parted his lips enough for the tips of his fangs to shine through, and Yunho walked his thumb across his upper teeth, then outlined the shape of his fang. They were as sharp as the tip of a pen, although it seemed that it took quite the muscle to pierce through skin. He wiped the bead of sperm from the corner of his mouth, then kissed him again. He escaped the memory of all the crates and bags filled with vampire fangs, the torturous process of having them removed. “Call me a fool and laugh at me, but I hope you know you’re so dear to me. Giving you my blood would be my greatest honour.”

Yunho took the crimson bedsheets pooled around Yeosang’s hips and covered his shoulders, then grabbed his necklace from the nightstand and put it back around his neck. He had gotten used to the view of his burn lines, but he also knew how stimulated he had to keep Yeosang’s eyes so he would not look at himself. “Would you ever betray me, Yunho?”

“I would never,” Yunho responded with no wasted time. “…Unless I had to protect you.”

“Protect me?”

“Yes. From the church. If they ever suspected that you are here, I would have to confess to it as well. But if I am ever to do that, I would tell you beforehand so you would run somewhere safe.”

“…But I could kill them. I care not about their God. Even if He made me.”

“I know you could. But the school is also involved. It’s not as easy. You could get me killed too.”

Eyebrows furrowing heavily with frustration, Yeosang nodded. He touched the bruises on his shoulders. “…You’re dear to me too.”

“Am I, even if I am made of stone?”

“Yes. Though I would like to break this stone and find the old _you_ in your stories. Not for my sake. But for yours. I would love to see you unguilty of seeking pleasure and joy. Stone does not fit you, darling. You know that.”

“But you’ve made me smile so much.”

“I know. And that smile looks good on you,” he leaned in and kissed his haw and throat, swiping his tongue just underneath his earlobe— a place that made Yunho lose his mind. “But the way you smile when you’re inside me, right before you kiss me. I think I love that smile the most.”

Yunho tilted his neck, lost in sensation, adjusting the sheet around Yeosang’s shoulders when it was about to fall. He wrapped him up entirely and cradled him into his arms. “Oh, you know how to flatter me, _illecebro.”_

“Ugh, don’t make me get up and turn your library upside down in search for the cursed word.”

“…You may. But tomorrow. I think it’s best to change bedrooms for tonight. We can sleep in the one next to the library if you wish.”

Yeosang swept the locks of hair away from Yunho’s eyes to fully see what they read. “But why the sudden change in tone, darling? What’s the matter?”

Leaning his head back against the headboard, Yunho sighed softly. Yeosang laid his hand over his heart, caressing his naked skin with his thumb. “The eyes…There are sometimes eyes watching me. And I don’t want them watching you too.”

This riddled manner of speech was one Yunho had once used with him when he did not want to divulge things about himself. Using words with more meanings, invisible to the naked eye. However, in just several days, Yeosang had taught himself how to solve them. “And do you know whom these eyes belong to?”

“Spies the baron has hired. I could never tell where they are. Sometimes I dream they force their way into the house.”

“…Spies, you say. For what?”

“…To protect me…This is why I love the wine cellar. It’s away from the world. No windows. No echo.” This was a subject that Yunho had meant to introduce Yeosang to differently. He wanted to gather enough evidence that those eyes in the shadows have never had the opportunity to spread the word. But after the long night they’ve spent together, he was sure those eyes were quick to speak. At the price of his life he wanted to protect Yeosang, but it was because of him that he had not paid attention to anything else. But then he remembered a little something that Yeosang said the first time they were about to fall asleep after making love. ‘I might not be with you tonight’, he said without knowing how long they could last in bed. He was about to leave while it was still dark and find someone to feed on. “I don’t want to be watched anymore,” Yunho went on, searing the words into Yeosang’s eyes, hoping he would understand.

Yeosang sled his hands down to Yunho’s hips. If he had said that the day before, Yeosang would have asked for so much in exchange. But the bloodlust was slowly creeping up his sanity. It was because of this that he had never told Yunho to stop no matter how much it hurt him. He had done a marvellous job at keeping his thirst at bay. “Yunho. Are you aware of what you’re asking of me?”

“I am.”

He gave Yunho one more moment to change his answer. But the graveness in his eyes was set in stone. “And are you sure you want that?”

“I do. I want it. I want us to be left alone.”


	4. Blizzard Sinking

Yunho knew the precise moment when Yeosang left. It was soon before the sun would rise, at a time when Yunho would still be sound asleep.

He woke up with a terrible headache which prevented him from doing any work in the first hours. As that day progressed, Yunho started worrying more, but in the late evening when he returned from the pharmacy, he heard soft sounds of splashing coming from the main washroom. He found Yeosang in a bath of lukewarm water, wiping the blood off his face with an already bloody rag. The underside of his nails were also stained, the scarlet in his eyes was pulsating like a human heart, and he was shaking. He had Yunho burn away the clothes he had worn that day. They haven’t spoken that night. Yunho attempted to bribe him with sweets, but he would refuse, claiming he was still too full.

Less than a week later, Yunho received his first letter from Jongho with the date of his return.

“I think I’m looking forward to meeting him, but is _he_?” Yeosang asked, standing in the doorway eating his apple tart while Yunho cleaned Jongho’s room. It was the first time Yeosang’s ever been in there. Above the king sized bed there was a white, pearlised crucifix, and against the wall with the study desk there was a bigger one in cast brass. In a glass cabinet there was a collection of silver rosaries in perfect condition, and above it was a crown of basil leaves. The murals depicted angels playing stringed instruments among clouds, a yellow light shining over them. Although it was a beautiful room to look at, Yeosang waited just outside of it out of courtesy. There was a faint smell of holy water coming from who knew where, which burned his eyes worse than onions made humans cry. There was a massive supernatural force that wanted to keep him outside that room at all costs, and Yeosang could feel it so clearly.

“…I don’t think so. When he arrives, I will ask you to wait in the library while I chat with him. I have to be careful how I introduce you two.”

“You say you love the boy, and yet you hide so much from him.”

“Yes. He betrayed my trust once. He has been trying to regain it since, bless him. He’s such a conflicted soul.” Yunho said woefully, picking up a little silver crucifix that lied on top of the bible. “But he’s good and gentle.”

“I thought faith isn’t meant to make you feel lost.”

“It’s not. He’s a firm believer in all things holy, but sadly the church had dictated him how to believe. They moulded his virtues, and catechised him into thinking that the work of God is to purge the world of vampires, and nothing else. And now he struggles to believe me when I tell him otherwise.”

“Yunho, I know I promised not to hurt him, but if I sense even the slightest harmful intention on him…I’m sorry. I have to think of myself too.”

Yunho wiped the dust away from the crucifix, then placed it back where he found it. “I trust it won’t come to that.”

✝︎

“Hyung, thank you so much. You really shouldn’t have. I know you hate the cold,” Jongho said, lifting his scarf across his nose.

“No need to thank me,” Yunho held the set of keys to the main door. As soon as he opened it, Jongho removed his shoes and coat, running straight to the fireplace.

Yunho had met him at the train station, but Jongho was more surprised by how willing he was to leave the warmth of his house. He remembered Yunho had an essay to write when he left him. When he walked past the kitchen, he noticed all the postcards he’d sent exhibited by the family portrait. He brought his hands closer to the fire, moving them around as if he was roasting something. He was yet too cold to notice other things. Soon, Yunho joined him by the fire, with two cups of tea in his hands, and a fur blanket which he wrapped around Jongho. “Hyung, am I imagining things, or are you acting a little different than before?” The younger asked, accepting the cup of tea with a nod, his body visibly melting at the first sip.

“I don’t know, am I?”

“Your eyes look slightly different. In a good way. Has something happened while I was away?”

Staring into the fire, Yunho took a slow sip. In the past three times, Yeosang was the one who made the tea. So violently sweet that Yunho thought the one he drank in the present was just boiled water. “It has, actually. But I’d like to have this conversation later. Maybe after you relax and warm up a little…It might take some time.”

“When you say it like that, hyung, I don’t think I can wait.”

“I know, but…it’s a matter I’d like to discuss considerately. You can tell me how your trip has been until then.”

Jongho has never taken Yunho’s secretive nature to heart. His beliefs and principles were polar opposites to his own, but he has never had harmful intentions. “They’ve been expecting a rain, but there hasn’t been any. And now the clergy wants to proclaim this new law where everyone is required to bathe in water of lustration for seven days in a row.”

“What? An entire city?”

“So they said. It all stemmed from the idea that what if human blood was toxic for vampires. They have been thoroughly looking into this. Creating serums or vaccines or even pills containing _argethium,_ but I can’t even begin to think how hysterical that would be.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a substance that causes vampires’ blood to congeal, but it’s not harmful to us. It has same effect that certain snakes’ venom has on humans. It’s what we add in our water of lustration when we make it. Holy water has never been holy water in its purest form, hyung. It’s this _argethium_ and maybe some tablespoons of regular holy water.”

“Is that what they’re doing now? Developing even more injections and bath rituals just for this?”

“I think it will be just the hunters who will…benefit from this. And the rest of the city will probably be required to perform that bathing ritual in order to purify. But I can tell you right now that none of this will be put into action, because they’ve spent the longest time panicking. Also, our argethium supplies are limited.”

“But why now?”

“Well, you see, there have been vampire sightings lately. Two in Vienna. The first one was just outside of the city, and the other one was around Donaustadt. I highly doubt there haven’t been any here. There are speculations that the clergy had sent a letter to Vienna, but nobody has received it yet. And because of this, everyone who lives or has frequented these areas must cleanse themselves in case they have come in contact with a vampire without knowing. Even stepping in their shadow would be considered touching a dead body to them.”

“And where do you stand?”

“Well it has fallen on me to formulate this new water of lustration. And I am honoured, but…I think I’ll keep bathing with regular water,” he smiled to himself, then drank the rest of his tea in one big sip before it would get cold. “I expected a lot more from this trip. The church is surprisingly disorganised in the midst of crisis. There was so much uncertainty…Makes you deduce what happened five years ago,” he looked at Yunho suggestively, then let his words settle in before he continued. “But you know, they summoned the name of your family so many times. It appears they feel lost without the knowledge of the Jeongs.”

“I don’t read letters, nor do I want to be involved in this, so please tell them not to bother.”

“Yes, I thought you didn’t. You’ve made their jobs much harder, but what can you do. They started sending hunters on patrol instead. But they are too frightened. Especially at night.”

“…Who wouldn’t be,”

“You, surely.” Jongho nudged him gently, then lifted himself up, balling his fists and releasing them, finally out of their numbness.

He picked his suitcase and went to his room, Yunho following closely behind. It was on the other end of the corridor from where Yeosang was, but his heart was racing nonetheless. Jongho’s presence wasn’t as fleeting as Yeosang’s. Jongho would never leave him in favour of anything. He liked to think that neither would Yeosang, but there was always pain in his chest whenever they held hands. Sometimes he craved death so intensely, but deep down he was still the average human wanting to experience things. He hated this side of himself the same way he hated daylight.

“Thank you for cleaning my room,” Jongho said, and Yunho turned around, facing the angels on the wall while the younger changed his clothes. He was that prudish.

Once he finished, Yunho sat down on the bed, waiting anxiously. Jongho quickly noticed how his knee jittered up and down, something he hardly ever did. “Hyung,” he sat down next to him, touching his shoulder. He could only wonder what intense emotion could haunt Yunho’s chest to the point of externalising it that way.

“You listen to me carefully, alright?” Jongho nodded remorselessly. “You said you trust me.”

“I do trust you.”

“And you know I would never harm you in any way.”

“I- I know.”

“You’re like my little brother, and I love you. You know this, yes?”

“…Yes. I care for you like an older brother. I too love you. But you worry me. You’ve never started a conversation like this before.”

“I know, but it’s very important for me that nobody else knows what I’m about to tell you. I want to trust you with my entire heart, but you have to do so too.” Jongho nodded slowly, and Yunho drew a new breath. “Things have happened ever since you left. And as you’ve noticed, I might be acting a little different as well.”

“Yes. You are. And…something happened.”

“It’s not a ‘something’ as much as a ‘someone’.”

“…Oh?”

“Jongho, there’s someone else in here with us,” Yunho confessed suddenly, before anxiety would cloud his judgement.

“What? Here? In this house?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Someone I…It’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

The only people who have ever entered the mansion other than the baron were Jongho’s friends. They gathered in his room and talked about so many things, and laughed, and bonded until late at night. But there has never been anyone from Yunho’s side. It broke Jongho’s heart to admit, but everyone from Yunho’s side was gone. He had never bothered forming new platonic relationships, let alone romantic ones. In the depths of his innocence, Jongho hoped it was the latter. Hopefully someone to love him more than his wife did. “…Alright,”

But Jongho was no fool either. It had all happened at a very convenient time, soon after he went on his little trip. His heart was too unstable in the cage of his chest, speculating things he’d never thought would ever arise in his mind. He warily walked alongside him to where he took him, his body growing accommodated to the temperature of the house. He wondered if it had ever been that warm.

Before Yunho opened the door to the library, Jongho grabbed the cuff of his shirt like he did when the lights in the house went off and they had to walk through the dark. Jongho was afraid of everything Yunho wasn’t.

Yunho opened the library door slowly as not to awaken the dark force that lied on the other side, keeping Jongho in his sight. He was met with a young figure sitting in Yunho’s reading armchair with a massive book in his hands which appeared to be a dictionary. His features were as dangerously delicate as a succubus’, his eyes serene like a perfect autumn’s landscape, and his silver hair was tied loosely and hanging over his shoulder.

Jongho grasped Yunho’s wrist, clenching his jaw to prevent a scream. “I knew it…I knew you would- I knew it…I knew you’d do something like this…I should have known. I should have said something,” he shielded himself behind Yunho’s tall figure, pressing his forehead against his back, clenching his shirt into his fists.

“Jongho, listen to me,” Yunho turned around, grabbing his shoulders reassuringly, wiping his tears before they even thought of spilling. “It’s alright. I promise.”

“It’s not! It’s not alright, it’s-” his words froze in his throat as he saw the vampire approaching them. He wore a gracious smile and eyes purer than spring light, but a fear like that of death overcame Jongho like a spear through the heart, and once again he hid behind Yunho. The vampire looked at Yunho and smiled widely like he wanted to giggle, and when given the accord, he held his hand out.

Jongho shook his head erratically, his breath falling thin in his throat, his eyes shaking in their sockets. The vampire’s hand appeared as smooth as sculpted in jasper, with so little lines and fingerprints, and his claws glowed like polished steel. He held it out patiently, his smile shifting to a worried one the more he looked at Jongho on the verge of fainting. “I can’t,”

“Alright, then,” the vampire said, then retreated to his seat, picking up where he had left off in the dictionary he was looking through.

Just then Jongho noticed that the vampire was wearing one of Yunho’s shirts, sitting so comfortably in the chair that Yunho had once been so possessive over. His heart nearly dropped when he saw Yunho casually stealing the vampire’s teacup, then running a hand through is hair to soften him when the other would sulk. Those were gestures he’s never seen Yunho perform on anyone before. His recklessness terrified him. But the way the vampire looked at him was nothing like he’s ever heard or read before either. His eyes were pleasant to look at; maybe his pupil was slightly more elongated than a human’s, but they looked nowhere nearly as terrifying as the legends said. With this thought in mind, Jongho approached him. Bravely, although slowly. “…Choi Jongho,”

Smiling, the vampire shook his hand twice. “Yeosang,” after that, however, he didn’t let go. Fear crept up Jongho once again to dangerous levels when the vampire lifted his hand up to his lips and gently kissed his knuckles. “Delighted,”

There may have been a million thoughts and reasons in Jongho’s head as to why he hadn’t withdrawn his hand. When he kissed him, it was as if a scorpion had bit him, and now he couldn’t feel a thing. He was an angel with black wings with the power to begrime one’s vision and cloak it in sin with just a kiss.

✝︎

Jongho cupped his forehead into his sweating palms, panting through his chattering teeth and shivering although he didn’t feel cold. In his palms he held a rosary to the brink of crushing, and his mind was too overcast in sleepiness and flashbacks of nightmares. He had cleansed the hand that Yeosang had kissed with holy water, but the ghost numbness persisted. His hand felt lethargic, unusually relaxed, but with heightened senses. He started feeling the texture of things even before he touched them, and when he looked at it, he could see the shape of the vampire’s lips touching him as gently as a rose’s petals.

He leapt up from his bed, wrapping a fur robe around him, and hasted down the stairs and straight to the oratory. He fell on his knees before the statue of a golden-robed Jesus holding the sacred heart in his hand, then dropped his forehead low. He breathed quietly, calming himself, then tangling the rosary between his fingers, he brought his hands together and whispered: “ _Pater Noster, qui es in caelis…sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum…Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra…”_ but halfway through he took a new breath and started over, even slower and more patiently. Scented candles were always left to burn in the oratory, but because it was perpetually cold, the perfume has never been that strong. But then he could feel the smell of dried basil at the foot of the statue. “ _In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen_.”

After his echo dispersed throughout the room, he opened his eyes, gazing into the shadow the candles casted over the basil bouquets. He lingered on the stairs, taking in the peace of mind he had finally been able to achieve after an entire restless night. He has hardly ever been haunted by nightmares so horrifying.

He could not bring himself to speak with the two, even during dinner. He had paid more attention to the way they communicated. It was on the same level as he communicated with his close friends, if not more. He knew he could never look at his friends the same way Yunho looked at the vampire. It was that loving look that horrified Jongho the most.

The sound of the oratory door creaking open dragged him out of his thoughts like a sudden warning alarm of an incoming calamity. Clenching his teeth, he grasped the silver rosary into his palm, furrowing his eyebrows.

“May I?” Yeosang asked, and Jongho knew the exact second when he wanted to lift his ankle to set foot inside the sacred room.

“Don’t,” he said, standing up and walking towards the door, channeling his fears into anything else that would make him think more clearly. He grimaced when he noticed that the vampire wasn’t wearing anything else but Yunho’s shirt, taking a cloak from the coat rack and tossing it in his direction. “Put this on first.”

“You care about my decency now?”

Jongho left his question unanswered and stepped out of his way. The vampire clothed himself like he was instructed to, leaving Jongho surprised for one moment. He walked along the pews as if through an art gallery, and was courteous enough not to step into the sanctuary.

“What are you doing here?” Jongho asked, his rosary quivering in his palm.

“I’m bored. Yunho’s writing. He won’t talk to me. I heard you running down the stairs. Are you alright?”

“…Yes.”

Yeosang lifted the cloak little above his ankles so he won’t step on it, then he sat down on the first pew bench on the right side of the statue. Next to him was a book of gospel readings. “If you want to talk to Yunho, don’t be afraid to ask me to give you some time.”

“What?” Jongho took a step towards the pews on the right, but hadn’t mustered that much bravery yet, choosing to sit on the one of the opposite row. The room was so quiet that even whispers echoed.

“Yunho told me quite a bit about you. He told me you’re kind. And that you’re like water and oil, but you’re still friends. I know he wants to protect you. I also know that my presence here might be a lot to take in for you. We were made to be enemies, after all. You study vampire hunting. My kind has never been in good terms with people like you.”

“Oh, no. I mostly study theory. I couldn’t kill anyone. I know how to repel vampires, but I couldn’t kill them…You look like _us_.”

“You think so?”

“…I do think so.”

“Then why have you almost fainted when you saw me?”

“Because I’ve never seen a vampire in my life. And I’ve never thought my first time would be in my own house, and so close to someone I know. And I also…I worry.”

“I won’t lay a finger on you, fear not.”

“I worry about Yunho hyung, not me,” Jongho looked at him, the words lingering in the air. “I don’t know if he told you this, but he has an illness.”

Yeosang lifted his chin, ready to nod and to admit that he knew, but then the realisation that he didn’t know everything struck him. He tilted his head curiously instead. “I know he takes injections, but I don’t know for what.”

Jongho looked down at his lap, caressing the crucifix with his thumb. “His body lacks the ability to form blood clots, so it’s very bad for him if he bleeds. If he cuts himself…he will bleed for a long time. Thankfully, I’ve never seen it happen myself. I’ve always been careful. And I know you’re probably thinking that this sounds strikingly similar to the curse of Thal. And it does. But Yunho hyung was born with it. He has taken injections for it for a long time now.”

Underneath the cloak, Yeosang clenched his fists. “I see,” his undead heart started aching. It took a few more breaths to realise it was unreleased anger. “This is why he told me not to bite him.”

“He told you?”

“Yes.”

“And you simply listened?”

“I’ve no reason to bite him. He’s become quite dear to me. He’s never resented me. Since the day I’ve met him, he’s never harboured a grudge against me. He’s never called me unholy. I, on the other hand, have resented the Jeongs since the day they killed my father.”

“…Really?”

“Yes. And then one day I see the last Jeong in Thal, walking with no fear and exploring and drawing things like a fool. He ran away after meeting me, and left some things behind. I followed him home with much darker intentions, but then we've discussed a lot of things in the first night, and I realised he was different. And he realised I was different as well. Then he asked me not to bite him. ‘It could hurt both of us’ he said. Now I finally know what he meant.”

Jongho stared at him like the universal truth was unraveling before his eyes and was gaining physical form. “You’re not meant to speak that way.”

“What way?”

“You can’t be good. You can’t. You must be planning something. I know how cunning you creatures are. You can’t be good.”

If Yeosang hadn’t realised that Jongho’t tone was almost rhetorical, he would have taken it to heart. But because Jongho wasn’t looking at him and he had lowered his voice as if to chant those words to himself, and in order to remind himself about what he truly believed in, he let him be. “Have you murdered anyone, Jongho?”

“No! How could I?!” He screamed against all odds, and even the candlelight shivered.

“But there are humans who murder other people, yes?”

“Yes?”

“What makes you think we aren’t the same? There have been vampires who have fallen in love with humans, and the humans have offered their body to them, making feeding a perfectly consensual thing. There have been vampires who have fed on the blood of innocent people. And there have been vampires who found it morally wrong to feed on those innocent people, and would only feed on corpses or blood banks. Now, I don’t blame you for thinking this way. And I won’t make you apologise. But I do encourage you to choose carefully where you gather your evidence from.”

“You’ve…You’ve killed people. I know you have. You don’t talk like someone who’s innocent.”

“When times have narrowed my options down to violence, then yes. But in these times, I see no reason why. I am decades older than you. I’ve lived and fought through those years you call ‘the first apocalypse’. And I may or may not be the only one left alive…It’s because of Yunho’s brother that I have no parents and no siblings left. And it’s because of me that Yunho doesn’t have a brother anymore. You see? This is how time is a cyclic thing.”

Jongho sucked his lower lip in, biting it softly. “Does Yunho hyung know this?”

“Yes. I told him. And he still wanted me to stay. He understood that what I’ve done was necessary.”

“But how? How can you look at him knowing that you killed his brother? Do you feel no remorse at all?”

“No. Because I have forgiven myself. And because Yunho has forgiven me as well. You see, loneliness is dangerous for the human heart. Loneliness is a constantly mutating disease. It creates so many dark thoughts, and from there new symptoms and new side effects. All he’s ever wanted was peace of mind. And I wanted the same. The world has made him pay for other people’s mistakes, and I was there to tell him that he doesn’t have to. I’ve given him that peace of mind.”

Jongho felt a tightening in his chest similar to that as when a crowd pointed fingers at him. There was anxiety and there was guilt. But there was also a form of pride that would not allow him to agree to the words of the unholy. They were not meant to know what was good, nor were they meant to mask their wrongdoings as acts of virtuousness, and practice forgiveness. They could not feel remorse because they thought their actions were just, not because they have forgiven themselves, Jongho thought.

He wrapped the robe around himself, folding his arms across his chest as he stood up and slowly made his way towards the door, with Yeosang following him remotely.

“How can I know you’re not plotting anything? How can I know you are sincere?” Jongho asked, his hand loosely around the freezing door handle, letting his fingers slide off as if against ice. He hoped for another chance to talk to him when his mind was more lucid.

“I like the bed I’m sleeping in right now, you see. I like being able to read what I want, and living in a warm place, and Yunho brings me sweets sometimes. This is something that I could get used to. There’s truly no such thing as a grander scheme in my mind at the moment. You can sleep peacefully. However, I do have a piece of advice for you.”

“What advice-” Jongho’s intonation faded to silence when Yeosang touched his hair. He gently swept it away from his eyes with his claws, smiling in a way that terrified Jongho more than the nightmares that woke him.

“It’s best to keep me on your side. If you are kind to me, I will be kind to you. Do not call me by the devil’s name, lest you want me to summon him,” he twirled Jongho’s hair around his finger, then smoothened back, purposely brushing past the apple of his cheek. “I will protect you,” he confessed suddenly, bereaving Jongho of his last complete though. His mind was a layer of thin glass across a shoreless sea. “But in exchange, you have to keep your pretty lips sealed for me. Not a single word to the church. About me and my whereabouts. About Yunho and I. If you find out about any sightings, you report to me first, and I will look into it.”

Jongho felt the vampire’s finger creeping closer and closer to his lips, but he spoke right before he would reach them. “But I- I can’t betray-”

“If the church finds out, Yunho will be the first one to die. I hope you know. Nothing good will come out of you betraying me. Breaking the trust of the church should be the least of your worries.”

With a sound similar to a dry sob, Jongho clenched his teeth and turned his head away from where Yeosang’s hand was, and when he saw no protests, he faltered and grabbed the vampire’s wrist, moving it away from his face. “I won’t tell anyone. Just don’t hurt him.”

“I won’t. Now you be a good lamb and let your God do the judging.”

✝︎

Yeosang stole a glance inside Yunho’s room before entering. He found him lying down in his bed, covered up to the hip with the thinnest blanket, with his nose buried into the last pages of a book. Yeosang stood by the door, counting the seconds until Yunho would notice him. He was not the kind to bother him when he was so focused, but something sparked in Yeosang’s chest at the time of seeing him. He tip-toed to his bed, crawling his way over to him on his palms and knees, then stole his book and sealed his lips with a chaste kiss before he would protest. Yunho embraced him tightly, sitting him down on his lap, smiling into the kiss when he noticed he was once again wearing almost nothing. “And where have you been?”

“I’ve tried to earn Jongho’s sympathies.”

“And?” Yunho lied his hands on Yeosang’s hips, arching an eyebrow.

“…I think I need more time. I have to make him believe that I am less of a monster than he thinks I am.”

“But you’re no monster.”

“Only a monster who loves another would say that.”

“I’ve never said I love you,” Yunho said in a dangerously low voice as his hand crept underneath Yeosang’s shirt, drawing circles into his hipbones.

“My darling, your chest has been nothing but scorched land ever since I started kissing it. Torturing you brings a taste as luscious as blood on my tongue. Don’t fool yourself…You monster.”

“You speak of torture, and yet you melt like snow when I touch you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself-” he choked on his own daring words when Yunho bucked his hips up once. He grit his fangs, hissing at the audacity of his actions, at the bold smirk on his lips when he’s done it a second time. Yunho flipped them over and caged him underneath him, kissing his chin and jaw to soften him the way he liked him best. “Wait,” he said in a whisper, already too powerless under the weight of Yunho’s lips and tongue. “Yunho, stop,” he held his hands right before he was about to undo the last button. “Before we do this, I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“Can’t it wait?”

“It could, but I’d like to discuss it now.”

Yunho said nothing at first, only covered Yeosang back, more for the sake of his sanity. He dragged his hands up and down his outer thighs, gently pinching his skin. There was hesitance with a hint of worry in Yeosang’s eyes, but through a _human_ kind of red. His eyes have never lacked that much crimson glow. “What?”

Tipping his head back, Yeosang closed his eyes, formulated his sentence, then opened them back. It was not the position he had imagined himself being in when discussing that. Already more bare-skinned than dressed and with his legs around Yunho’s hips. “Why didn’t you tell me about your illness?”

Yunho dragged his palm across his face, laughing in disbelief. “Ah, I should have known he’d tell you.”

“I asked him to. Don’t fault him.”

“But why do you want to know so badly?”

“Because we’ve already shared so much. Why can’t I know this too? It’s a crucial detail about you.”

“Only that it’s not. Sometimes people will want certain things about them to remain unknown. Or…some things are better left unsaid for so many reasons. I don’t like this about me, and therefore I want no one else to know. Things have been alright even without you knowing.”

“But would it hurt if I knew?”

Yunho offers him a soft smile, carding his hand through his hair, entranced by how much Yeosang’s hair glowed like silver pieces of jewellery. “What are we? You and I?”

“What?”

“This thing we have formed. You said I am your item of pleasure. And you are mine. You said I am dear to you, and so are you to me. I cherish you. But there is nothing beyond that, and I am aware. So there are some lines that may remain uncrossed.” Yunho said in the voice of a lover opening his heart, kissing him with his hypnic lips, seemingly healing them, unknowing that the rest of his body was bleeding.

While Yunho’s kissed him obliviously, Yeosang stared into the heart of the shadows laid across the ceiling, with a blur in his eyes that stung him like sun, and an ache in his chest that no embrace could cure. Yunho kissed him, but his skin was stone.

“You fool.”

✝︎

The voices of the pen scribbling against paper and that of the flipping pages conversed more than they did. Yunho was proofreading Jongho’s research paper while the younger rested his eyes next to him with a book underneath his temple. But even before they’ve all gathered in the library, the house had still been quiet. Tension was palpable in the air, but no one knew from where. It was a form of hostility from the atmosphere against the house that kept them awake and unable to focus on their tasks.

Yeosang was in the far end of the library, sitting on the floor with a dictionary in his lap. He often found himself absentmindedly flipping through pages, or forgetting the word he was looking for. He could only remember it if he recalled Yunho’s voice saying it, but at the moment that was a voice that he did not want to hear.

“What are you looking for?” Jongho asked, taking short steps towards him while rubbing his eyes.

“Um,” Yeosang blinked himself out of his daze, eventually closing the book. “… _Illecebro_ …I think,” he whispered shyly.

“Oh, that means temptation.” He picked the correct dictionary from the shelf so quickly that he seemed to have chosen it aimlessly. He quickly flicked his thumb through the corner of the page where the found the one he was looking for, then he handed it to Yeosang, pointing at the word. “Temptation, allurement, or incitement. You’ll also find it used to describe women who use their charms and _eros_ in a…rewarding manner, if you understand what I mean,” he looked away and cleared his throat, “ _Illecebro_ is the masculine form.”

“Thank you,” Yeosang nodded once, walking his finger over the word, and all of its definitions and declensions. “How did you know?”

“It’s a recurring word in vampiric study. In the newer dictionaries, you’ll find ‘seductress’ and ‘temptress’ synonym with ‘vampire’.”

The corner of Yeosang’s lips twitched in a tentative smile, thanking him with a nod and returning him the book. He brought his legs to his chest and rested his chin against his knees. For several days he felt the need to always rest his head against something as it felt it too heavy with thoughts trying to settle themselves in the midst of a sea storm. “…Is that a good word?” He asked quietly.

“‘ _Illecebro’_?” Yeosang nodded. Jongho opened his mouth to reply with the first thing that his faithful heart found right to say, but refrained himself when he became aware of Yeosang’s tone. “…Temptation alludes sin, so to me it is not a good word,” he laid his palm on his chest, over the wooden crucifix he wore underneath his shirt. He received no reaction from Yeosang, but a small voice in his mind told him that there was a good reason why his eyes were so dim. That morning he and Yunho went to the bakery shop only for a box of crescent-shaped cookies for Yeosang, but he hadn’t eaten any. “But by itself…I don’t think temptation is a bad thing. If I were to think of it as a weapon, I would say it’s a strong one. But then again, it truly is a weapon. It will have no effect on people if nobody will use it. Such as when no firearm will kill a person unless one pulls the trigger,” he then brought his hands together over his stomach, taking an ant’s step towards Yeosang, then apprehensively he sat down beside him. “Do you, um,” he mirrored Yeosang’s position, but in his case it was out of utter discomfort. “Do you think this word misrepresents you?”

It was the first time Jongho had addressed Yeosang a question that had nothing to do with murders of the past, liaisons with the devil, or darker intents. It was the most sympathy Yeosang’s ever received from him, and he couldn’t help but sketch a smile. “No. It does not. I’d say we’re proud of the reputation we have. And you are correct, it is a powerful weapon. I have only been thinking about the times when the tempter is the one being tempted.”

At that, Jongho peeked towards Yunho, who hadn’t yet moved from his spot, but it was safe to assume he was eavesdropping. Sometimes when Yunho was awake at impossible hours, he’d search for Yeosang and call his name, and he’d feel so bitter until he saw him again. It was this, their intimate touches, and the never healing bruises on Yeosang’s neck that made him understand how things truly were. It was a reality that Jongho had no choice but to comply to. “…Is this why you’ve been so quiet?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been by yourself a lot, I’ve noticed,” he said while pointing towards Yunho. “Is it because you’ve been thinking?”

The concern in his voice would have made Yeosang laugh on a better day, but there was something heartwarming in how much the younger struggled to communicate with him like a friend. If only a vampire’s worries were for human ears. “Don’t burden yourself with my-” he said, but was interrupted by someone slamming the front’s door knocker and desperately slapping it while screaming Yunho’s name.

“Oh,”Jongho sighed, already appearing to know what was happening. He rushed towards Yunho, who stood up with an exhausted groan, wrapping the robe around him and hissing curse words while trudging his way downstairs. He left the door wide open, but Jongho closed it enough for the voices to travel through clearly.

“ _Yunho! Oh, my goodness, are you alright? Let me look at you— You’re alright, yes? I haven’t seen you in so long, but I’ve heard the rumours and you were the first person I thought of!_ ” the baron chattered on such a dramatic tone, that if Jongho hadn’t known him better, he would have thought he was following a script.

“Why is he here?” Yeosang whispered, but Jongho pointed outside, then gestured for him to listen.

_“I’m…I’m fine. What happened? I thought you were away.”_

_“I was! Oh, I was away! But I haven’t seen you in so long, and you would not reply to my letters!”_

_“…You know I never reply to letters. You’ve never knocked at my door so belligerently before. I hope there’s a good reason.”_

_“Oh, dear, I know you hate being disturbed, but let me tell you…Let me tell you, Yunho, there’s been a murder case in St. Leonhard, and I rushed here as soon as I heard. It was one of my men, Yunho. I knew the man and I knew his wife. I knew him well, Yunho, he’s worked under me for many years now. I’ve hired him to protect you, Yunho.”_

_“Oh, your spy, then.”_

_“It was not a spy, Yunho, we’ve already spoken about this. But nonetheless, he’s gone. He disappeared few nights ago, and after hours and hours of searching, he was found in his bed in a pool of his own blood and his throat almost severed from his body. But I know he was here. He was working. When his wife found him, she said the window to their bedroom was wide open.”_

When Yunho could not provide an answer right away, Yeosang tapped Jongho’s shoulder, saying: “I don’t think he wants to be alone with him now. You should probably go too.”

Jongho nodded. “You’re right.”

And his presence downstairs was much needed indeed. The shift in Yunho’s eyes, from hopelessness and misery to the sanguinity like that of witnessing divine intervention was as swift as an actor changing between masks. In his absence, Yeosang left the library as well, hiding behind the wall by the staircase where he could hear them clearer. Whoever this baron was, he smelled vilely.

The baron brought Jongho into an uncomfortable embrace, cupping his cheeks so harshly that his thick rings dug indents into his skin. “You’re back. I’m glad, oh, I’m so glad. I thought they would never let you leave Vienna. They’ve sent vampire investigators there as well. You’ve heard the rumours, haven’t you?”

“Oh, there have been too many rumours as of late. But some have been proven to be farces made by conspiracists and cultists, so who knows what is true these days. And if I may be honest, I hope that is what they are. But sir, forgive me, I couldn’t help but overhear you said something about a murder case? I’ve heard nothing of the sort.”

Laying a hand over his old heart, the baron took Jongho by the wrist and sat down in the lounge, and while wiping the sweat from his forehead with a gold-embroidered handkerchief, he retold the story. He often told stories with his eyes closed, giving Jongho and Yunho the opportunity to exchange desperate glances. The story he was telling must have shocked him so much that he did not realise it was not Yunho’s hand he was holding. “Oh, those bloodsuckers, those snakes, those rotten and wicked beasts, those whores of Judas in hell!— I will rip their skin in strings and hang them and their breathing children by my gates, should they lay a hand on my men again.”

Yunho swallowed thickly, looking towards the stairs, then at Jongho, who was also searching for his eyes. “Sir,” the younger said gently “Anger will only shroud your prudence. Should I say a prayer for you?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. You may. Now if you have a prayer about expelling evil, please share it with me.”

“Sir, vampires are undead, and no prayer will reach them, but even so we mustn’t pray for the harm of others. Instead I’d like to pray for the serenity of your mind.”

And while they prayed, Yunho’s heart went wild. He knew why Jongho changed the subject so abruptly, and he was grateful for it. The baron was like a creature with a thousand invisible eyes, always watching him although the ones on his head were closed.

Yunho could sense Yeosang’s anger even from there, and had a desperate urge to pull him into his arms, but if his fingers twitched too harshly, the baron would know and call a doctor for him. He knew how to play Yunho’s strings and delude him into believing he was insane.

“Thank you,” the baron said, holding Jongho’s hand a little too tightly.

“No need. I will also leave a prayer for the one you’ve lost, and his wife as well.”

“Please do. He was only trying to protect you. He’s always reported your every move to me religiously. He was very loyal to me.”

“…I see.”

The baron sighed, then wiped his sweat off his temples. “I would love to join you for dinner later, but we all have a curfew now. You two better stay inside as well until they find the criminal. And Yunho, I shall send the vampire’s fangs into a nice little package for you to add to your brother’s collection. I believe it hasn’t grown in a long time. Oh, how museum-worthy would that be.”

“Please don’t,” Yunho held his breath right after. He was unsure which part of his maddened self reacted that quickly.

“You must honour your brother, Yunho. He’s saved the humanity in this city from extinction. I know you’re grieving, dear, and I understand, but you mustn’t feel ashamed. He’s done nothing but good things for everyone. His murderer will suffer the most terrible of fates. If he hasn’t already, that is. Worry not.” The old nauseating feeling overtook Yunho’s chest and stomach. He felt his knees growing weak and his brain ready to spin like a clock. “Now, don’t look at me like that, dear, you know I’m saying this lovingly. You’re like a son to me, you know this, yes? You’re like a son to me.”

“…Alright.”

“And because I care about you, I have appointed a doctor to come see you tomorrow.”

“You did _what_? Why?”

“You’ve never been this pale. You look unwell. And we need to make sure you are taking your injections.”

“I am taking them.”

“He is!” Jongho intervened, having gone through that scenario too many times. “I am administering them for him. And he has been well too these days. He doesn’t look unwell to me.”

“He does, Jongho, he does. I’ve known him since he was a little boy and he’s never been so pale. There must be something he’s not telling me. You know he’s always hiding his pain. He never tells me when he’s in pain, Jongho, you know he never does. And it hurts me to do this, but a doctor has to have a look at him and maybe prescribe more antidepressants. Stronger ones. Yes, most definitely stronger ones. —You see the way he looks at me? He becomes so angry whenever I tell him about the doctor.”

“Well, I’m sure he doesn’t-”

“Oh! And I shall have a priest bless this house. It hasn’t been blessed in a few weeks, and you can sense it. It has become very prone to negative energies. Vampires may be drawn to this place. You be careful. Please expect a visit in the next days.”

Jongho nodded, gently patting Yunho’s back, surprised he was still containing himself. “Alright. Thank you, sir.”

“And Jongho, I am very much looking forward your reformulated water of lustration, my boy. You will provide me with some, won’t you? A man has died for your protection.”

“I- I will, sir. Of course I will.”

The moment Yunho heard the door lock, he dropped to his knees with an intense urge to cry. He buried his face into his knees and yanked at his own hair, as helpless as if he stood in the centre of a burning room. Somewhere, from a distant place he heard Jongho’s voice apologising for the actions of others. “Yeosang,” he said, first to himself, and then louder. He dashed up the stairs, devouring the air through his tightening throat “Yeosang?” Even if the air itself seemed to drain. The library window was wide open and the curtains torn like a feline had scratched through them.

Admitting defeat before the pain whose existence he has denied since the budding of his loneliness, Yunho collapsed to his knees.


	5. Enrapture, Eris

Yeosang sat kneeled in the aphotic zone in the sea of porcelain shards and ribbons of painted canvas, panting through tears of rage with his jaw trembling in anticipation to sink his teeth into flesh and tear it apart. His hands were repleted with cuts and puncture wounds from his own sharp nails, blood amassed into the creases of his palm. With trembling knees he stood up, eyes hazy with tears and throat droughty from the hours he had spent screaming and cussing and sobbing. He kicked all the shards out of his way and crushed the ones that were too large under his foot. Everything that had not reached its last level of destruction drove him to the brink of a bestial type of fury that he didn’t know he owned. “You fool,” he whispered to himself, grabbing one of the last remaining vases in the gallery, tossing away the wilted flowers that crushed in his hand like parchment. “You dare say there’s nothing more,” he sighed, then this sigh became a huff of laughter. He slapped his hand across his eyes, leaning his head back, with the blood on his palms pouring over his eyelids. “And then you weep like a widow when I’m gone,” he wiped the blood off his eyelids with his wrist, laughing out of his control, but the tears were the first to betray him. “Oh, you fool…You’re making me wish I had the strength to kill you,” he said in a ragged voice, shaking with the beginnings of another surge of anger. He tossed the vase away, smashing it against the wall, then kicked the table where the centrepiece of the gallery was, smashing all the remaining ceramics against the floor, then picked a statuette of a deer by its antlers, one of the last surviving pieces. “I should have killed you!” The sound of his roar collided with that of the porcelain breaking, shards soaring across the rooms like arrows shot blindly.

It may have been a night. Or little over that. Everything that resounded with the fragility of his soul has now met its demise in a sea of shards and wooden bits and pieces of what were once frames. He stood in the centre of a graveyard of a master’s craft. Artistic pieces that once had value in certain people’s eyes.

He did not regret a single thing. His soul was as light as a feather, numb and mortified by all it had gone through, enough to be reminded that it should fear its host more than it feared death.

His eyes burned like a scarlet sun against the ivory coloured shards, and the tears that rolled down his cheeks glowed like rubies. Strands of his hair and threads from the hem of his shirt hung by his claws in the aftermath of him trying to shatter his own soul to pieces. His famished heart had kneeled before the arms and lips of a filthy mortal, then foolishly gave itself away. And now Yeosang was dealing with the consequences of a heartless chest and the lack of control he presented when a human held his undead heart so gently and called him his own, only to throw him away.

“ _Have you finished, my prince_?” A voice said from the other side of the door, drawing him out of his internal crisis.

His mind felt rabid enough to lunge at whoever had the nerve to disrupt him. He was not in the right place to applaud courage. The door swung open slowly as if against the current of the sea, sweeping away all the bits and shards.

There stood a tall, young man of epodic appearance, hair of a chthonic black, and wrapped in black lace. Crimson earrings shaped like teardrops framed his face beautifully and his hand was heavily adorned by ruby rings. His garnet eyes were slightly dilated and against his lower lip there was a thin streak of blood, like he had just fed. “Seonghwa,” Yeosang gasped, watching him with eyes wide. He mindlessly stepped over porcelain fragments, ever so slowly lifting his hands, with an unbelieving smile on his lips. Seonghwa also smiled upon seeing him, opening his arms and welcoming Yeosang into the tightest embrace. “It’s you. It’s really you,”

“I’ve found you. Oh, prince, I cannot believe I’ve found you,” Seonghwa almost sobbed, kissing the top of Yeosang’s head.

Yeosang held his cheeks, caressing his warm and flushed skin. “You’re here. You’re alive.”

“And you. Oh, what heavenly god must have struck me to be able to find you. Is this where you’ve been this entire time?”

“No. I’ve been travelling. Just this month I’ve returned to Graz.”

“…For the anniversary, I presume.”

“Yes. But many things have happened since.”

“I,” Seonghwa looked at the chaos over Yeosang’s shoulder “I can see that. Prince, you must tell me what has embittered you so deeply. Such turmoil doesn’t suit you.”

“I have indeed never felt such turmoil,” he lowered his hands, leaning them against Seonghwa’s chest, but he took him by the wrists and flipped his hands over to look at the multitude of cuts sullying his flawless skin. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

“It seems you have much more to tell me than I thought.”

“…I do indeed,”

“Well, I’m listening,” Seonghwa released him gently, then proceeded to remove his cloak, hooking it across his arm. “Though I have overheard some things you’ve mumbled to yourself there and I wonder if my intuition was correct. Prince, you haven’t fallen at the graces of a human, have you?” Yeosang walked a step behind him, eyes fixed groundward, too ashamed to be alongside him. “Oh, my, how the stars have misaligned. But then, you said you’ve made him weep like a widow in your absence. He is definitely not the first one.”

“It was just a moment of weakness. One that had cost me too much than I can bear now. I should have killed him.”

“If you had killed him, then you would have probably not destroyed your sister’s gallery.”

“Everything here is ours to keep or destroy. Those memories have hindered me for too long, Seonghwa. But now— and I cannot believe I am saying this, but I wish they hindered me more. More than this heart of mine is. It aches. It aches like it never has before. It aches so much that I am starting to dwell on this ache.”

Seonghwa hummed. An enemy of Yeosang’s was an enemy of his own. The only line of forgiveness he would ever offer a human and exempt him from his list of livestock was if Yeosang asked him to. There were punishments tailored for every one of them for ill-treating the prince. “Tell me about this man?” Seonghwa smiled, opening the door to the main lounge. It was a room they had once preferred much more than their own bedrooms. They would sneak out as children and sit by the fireplace pretending they were dragons. Reminiscing over those times, Seonghwa split a firewood in half, then set it afire with a candle, gradually adding more wood shavings and logs as the flame grew.

Yeosang looked at the wounds in his palms. It had been so long since he was last hurt, he’s forgotten how quickly he was meant to heal. “His name is Yunho. He has a beautiful face, but his eyes are so tired at times. He’s tall and a bit too thin for my liking. His lips look like they have been painted. In colour and shape, they’re so alluring. But the soothing sound of his voice has touched my heart the quickest. Low spirits have taken his laughter away from him, but I have made him laugh once. He’s precious when he laughs.”

Firelight waltzed across the sheen on Yeosang’s lips as he smiled. There had never been a time when Seonghwa didn’t share his joy. Even before he was assigned his guardian and they were only friends, when the strangest things made Yeosang happy, Seonghwa became happy as well. “When I meet this man, I want to be swept off my feet. You speak of him so beautifully. What a pity he’s only human.”

“He may be, but to us he’s not just any human,” Yeosang’s tone hasn’t wavered, but the crackling of the fire appeared like a moon’s rain in his eyes. “This man is the last Jeong left alive.”

Seonghwa whipped his head around in shock, eyes flickering. “No,” he shook his head, then heaved out a hesitant laugh. “No, you must be lying.”

“I am not. There’s something about him that makes him a little too powerful to be human.”

“And what’s that?”

“I can’t explain it to you. But I’ve witnessed it. It’s a weapon far stronger than what we have,” Yeosang ran his finger across a cut on his palm, maybe a second away from healing completely, “Killing him would be the easiest thing for me. Seonghwa, you should hear the way he speaks and writes about us. If I asked him to write an hymn for us, he would. And this,” With the tip of his claw he tapped his lips, enticing the fire to crawl out of its place, “This is a much greater punishment than killing him. Regardless of how much he has upset me, I have to keep him by my side. The one I want to punish is his kin. His brother in particular. But not Yunho. I want to burn the name Jeong from his identity, and blow the ashes in the air in hopes that it reaches his brother’s corpse wherever it is now. I want this man’s body and heart, but not while his name ties him to the murderers of my mother and father.”

Once upon a time when Yeosang had assumed his father’s position of leadership, he was criticised for being too gentle-hearted for the kind of world they lived in. He had never touched a weapon his entire life, nor has he used his claws out of crucial need, and yet more and more men have been found bearing the mark of his fangs on their throats. He had hisways of charming married men and leaving the grandest bouquets at their funeral. It was his lips and naked shoulders that have buried more men than any fang or curse.

“You worried me. I almost thought you’ve repented.”

“I’d rather pull my own fangs out. I haven’t forgiven him, but I will make him yearn me so much that he will beg forgiveness from me.” He took the pendant from Seonghwa’s necklace into his hand. It was in the shape of a dagger made of glass containing human blood as a form of emergency ration, same as the necklace he wore. “The first time we slept together he said to me ‘My brother doesn’t know how to treat beautiful things’.”

“And he does, I assume?”

“He does,” he chuckled, “He is afraid, but he does know.”

Then Seonghwa lifted the gemstone from Yeosang’s necklace with the side of his finger, wondering why there was no blood inside it anymore. “If you say he loves you so, then what has he done to awaken your vicious side?”

“I believe he doesn’t trust me. Even in fear, he is too knowing. And you know I have never engaged with smart men.”

With a smile that displayed all the longing he’s had for him, Seonghwa pressed a kiss on his forehead, then pulled him into his arms. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, prince.”

“And I. No one understands me like you do,” Yeosang leaned his cheek against his chest, looping his arms around his waist. He’s always been too warm. “And you don’t have to call me prince anymore.”

“You’ll always be our prince. But if you don’t like it, I will call you dove instead.”

“…Dove? But I am nothing like a dove.”

“Perhaps not, but you are just as gentle-tempered. The most endearing thing about you is that in spite of all the humans that have perished at your feet, you still appear so pure and innocent. I’ve promised Hongjoong I would tell you this.”

“Hongjoong? He’s alive?”

“You know I’d never go anywhere without him. We have our own castle in the mountains near Riegersburg, and he has been thriving since. He is well and healthy again. But he misses you. It is partly thanks to him that I’ve set off on this journey to look for you.”

“Or course…of course you’d be together. Why have I ever thought I’d never see you again? I’d love to see him. I miss the way he scolded me.”

“And we’d love nothing more if you came and lived with us…But I understand what’s keeping you here now. For as long as I’m here, dove, please use me.”

“Use you?”

“In my heart there is more loyalty for you than anything else, so if there is something you need, give the order and you shall receive it.”

“Well, you could start by not speaking to me as if you still work under me. If you help me, I’d like you to do so as my friend.”

Seonghwa bowed his head. “Alright, I will. But I take it there is something to be dealt with?”

“Maybe. There’s something that has been troubling me ever since I’ve met Yunho. Tell me this: You’re the one who wrote the chant for cursing the soil in Thal, right?”

“It was Hongjoong and I, yes. The curse book might still be hidden in the castle.”

“Was it meant to be just a curse, or something more?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Yeosang took a step back, pacing up and down with his arms crossed over his chest. “Apparently Yunho has this disease where his blood is unable to form clots. And thus he will bleed for a longer time after getting injured. And…I want to believe him, but something tells me not to. He has a treatment for it. An injection of some kind. But he seems to think that if I drink his blood, it will hurt me. Which has led me to think that these injections contain something that may be harmful to us. Unless he’s lying, of course. Although I don’t think he’d lie to me about this.”

“You think it’s too coincidental? Or that he may use this disease to conceal something else?”

“I think so. I’ve never heard of a disorder like this before.”

“It may be real. Humans have thousands of diseases for every part of their poor bodies. If you remember, many years ago when I stumbled upon that pastor who slept in that abandoned church. I wanted to drink his blood, but when he saw me, he gave me a goblet filled with his blood. And the next time he slit his wrists to feed me some more. Life had drained out of his eyes so slowly, that he willingly gave his blood to me. And as he did, he said to me ‘I’ve once had a dream where I was a mountain and rivers of blood poured out of my chest and hands’. And then he told me of this disorder which you’ve mentioned. He claimed it was real and that he was born with it because his mother also carried it. And that humans who suffer from it best run for their lives and out of vampires’ ways. With this in mind I find it very unlikely that the Jeongs carried this disease and yet declared war on us.”

“So you think there’s still a chance he could be lying.”

“He could be. Although your observation about the injections containing something harmful to us piqued my interest. I wonder what could they contain since we can hardly call anything poison. I will look into it tonight.”

“Tonight,” Yeosang echoed in a whisper, hugging himself tighter, then nodded. “If you are leaving tonight, then so will I. My heart will not rest until I speak with him.”

“I believe so as well. You won’t stop self-soothing.” He cupped Yeosang’s face and kissed his forehead with only the tip of his lips. “And don’t forget to refill this,” he tapped the empty gemstone hanging from Yeosang’s necklace.

✝︎

The air around the cathedral bore a strong smell of holy water that it nearly blazed Yeosang out of his sanity. He covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve as he paced through the night and back to Yunho’s mansion. He took a different road, away from the large buildings in its vicinity, one that would lead him to the garden instead.

That garden was greedier in space than the house itself, roughly the same size as the Belvedere palace in Vienna. It was so grand that it had to be divided in two by an iron spiked fence, with the side that was farthest from the mansion having become a public park. Though not a frequented one due to the popular belief that it had been built on top of a vampiric graveyard. Yeosang had sometimes looked at this garden when he was alone, and has always wondered why some patches of soil simply refused to grow vegetation.

He stood right before one of those patches. He looked down at the deserted soil, at the ancient language written in moon rays, then he lifted his hand to his mouth and bit hard, then pulled his fangs out. His blood dripped through the crevices, and in a blink of an eye it had evaporated like water. He licked off the two beads of blood on his palm, and proceeded towards the next one, until he eventually reached the fence. He swiftly jumped over it with the precision of a cat, his heart throbbing in his chest like the ground was bodies buried alive punching their ways to the surface.

“Yeosang?”

He startled, touching his frail heart out of instinct. He searched the darkness around him, suddenly blind at the voice that had weakened him. The voice came from everywhere, tree and flower and star. “Yunho?”

But then he saw him. Wrapped in a black cloak to match his own, rushing towards him with arms wide open, welcoming death’s child into his chest with no fear. “Oh, I thought I was seeing things. I saw you from my window, but I- I truly didn’t think it would be you.”

“Have your eyes always been this sharp?”

“No…No, but I’ve shamelessly longed for you so much that my delusions must have come true.” He chuckled, and Yeosang chuckled with him.

His laugh was like a childhood treasure forgotten in the back of an attic, that when found brought enough memories to birth a new lifetime. Yeosang wanted to embrace him as much as his heart had also longed for him. It has only been little over a day, but when the heart fell into the claws of love, it had its own melodramatic ways of expressing pining. “…I see,”

Yunho took his hands with the intention of kissing them, and although he could not see them clearly, he could feel the rough texture of the scars all across his palm. “What’s this? What have you done?”

“No one else was hurt in the process, don’t worry. Except some…jugs and vases.”

Sighing, Yunho buried his face into his palms nonetheless. He kissed them and ran his tongue over where he had bit himself, the scent of his blood too prominent to resist. “There are things we have to talk about, it seems.”

“No…No there aren’t. Don’t worry.”

“Yes, there are. You’ve been avoiding me ever since I said that. It seems we’ve both misunderstood? Or just I.”

“You haven’t misunderstood anything, darling. We can leave it all behind.”

“Then why are you still calling me ‘darling’?”

“I don’t know, why are you still holding me like this?”

Then Yunho held him even closer until their bodies warmed each other. “Because I let fear speak over me, and it hasn’t told you the truth.”

“And now? Is this your fear speaking to me?”

“It wants to. When I face you like this I can hardly silence it.”

“Sometimes you say you offer yourself to me because you care not about your fate, and other times you hide the true face of your heart from me in the guise of fear. What will it be, then?”

Yeosang was the silence before the creation of the Universe, the unfathomable void before there was even anything. A mass of darkness so gentle and yet so powerful that made death appear as glorious as living. Then this primordial silence became a roar, and this roar became a blast that created world and time. Every time Yunho felt his hands on him, he took a slow breath— a gamble between savouring his touch or an irrevocable decision to give into death. He hoped that once and for all, it would be the latter. “Even if I tried to hide my heart, you would dig it out right away.”

“And you’re allowing it.”

“I am. My heart’s just that craving to kneel to you. Everything that’s good in me is already yours. But I don’t know what to do with this fear. I don’t want it.”

“Give it to me, then. Give yourself to me, like you promised. Good and bad. The shades in you. The dappling light. I will take everything that is you. If you swear loyalty to me, then there’s nothing you have to fear. Leave your doubts to me and they shall never becloud your mind again.”

Yunho’s lips earnestly dove into Yeosang’s offer, his arms never having left him. He was like a god of death in a world of immortals, a harbinger of light in a time of sun extinguished. And Yeosang was hope embodied. “I swear,” he said, and kissed him again blazingly. “Oh, I swear to you.”

“Good,” Yeosang kissed him once, then caressed the apples of his cheeks, smiling although his heart ached its way back to life. He picked at the scab in his palm from his own bite, pressing into his skin until blood began pouring out. “Then drink,” he held his hand cupped right above Yunho’s lips, blood flooding his lines.

Yunho took his hand within his, tipping it just enough for the blood to roll smoothly down his throat. He thought of Yeosang, but not of his blood. It had a smell and a taste far beyond his frame of language. Blood had never spurred out of him, and in the times when he’s seen it, it was contained within thick glass like it was more dangerous than cyanide. People had averted his eyes from blood as if he was meant to believe he did not have any. It spilled onto his chin, and he felt the first wave of nausea curling its way into his stomach. He groaned— in pain or endurance, his heart sobbing in him in the midst of a storm where there was no shelter. He thought himself like carved in glass, and Yeosang’s blood was colour filling his surface and creases, moulding him into a primordial thing in the line of undead creatures.

Panting, he lowered Yeosang’s hand and wiped his mouth, resisting the continuous urge to gag. Before him was dark, but things fluttered and moved about on such a luminous backdrop. Butterflies with bleeding wings, smoke that screeched as wildly as bats.

“Darling, are you alright?” Death said with a smile.

Yunho nodded, wiping his mouth once again although there was nothing. “Yes,” He swallowed once last time everything that was left underneath his tongue, but regardless, there was always more. “Need I drink more?”

“No. That was enough. You’ve taken it well. Now that you have my power, I don’t ever want to see you afraid.” Yeosang touched his face softly, caressing his flushed cheeks and warm, blood-nuanced lips. “As for my loyalty. My own oath. I will wait for you.”

“Wait for me?”

Yeosang nodded. “I would have to drink your blood now as well. But I understand. And therefore I will wait until you are ready. However, til that day comes,” he trailed on, and swept his hand behind his shoulders. He reached his hands to the nape of his neck, opening the necklace clasp up and unwrapping it. Taking the piece of jewellery off had always felt like a memory he was unable to commit to. It was a precious item that meant nothing to everyone else, but him. “Have this instead. If you are loyal to me, then so am I to you.” He placed it into Yunho’s hand, then wrapped his fingers around it.

They fell into a silence in which both felt too much to speak. It was pure like that of star-crossed lovers depicted in myths. “Are you sure?” Yunho whispered, and Yeosang nodded. He nodded slowly and tinged with regret. He’d drink the blood of more men to fill an entire city, but his purity was like that of a god’s aura. His innocence and purity was so blinding that no one would ever find the spider’s fangs hidden in its veils.

When Yunho leaned in once again to kiss him, Yeosang touched his chest to stop him, having picked something up within his peripheral. A square of darkness where it had once been candlelight.

“What’s wrong?” Yunho asked, then turned around to see for himself. His breath froze in his throat when he saw the windows to his bedroom suddenly going dark. “No,” he exhaled sharply, then grasped Yeosang’s shoulder. “Run.”

“What-” he gasped as Yunho pushed him away from him.

“Run. Please go. Please.”

Before he would comprehend, Yeosang whipped his head towards where the rustling sound came from. His eyes glowed scarlet, gritting his teeth and sharpening his claws. But before he could charge, he saw a silver line flash in the moonlight, wrapping tightly around his throat. Something thinner than a whip and thicker than wire, but fully plated in silver sheets. He opened his mouth wide to breathe, but an agonising scream erupted from his throat, tossing his head back in a fruitless attempt to loosen the hold.

“Well done, Yunho,” said the voice of a demon on earth. He was joined by two taller men in brown cloaks and raven masks, carrying torches and pistols— students from the school of vampire hunting. “Oh, you’ve done so well.”

Two more cloaked figures stepped out of their hide, seizing Yeosang’s arms, kneeling on top of him and shackling him with silver cuffs. “You-”

“No…No, I- I didn’t- I swear-” Yunho’s mind went dark with shock, unfazed by the butterflies and bats conjuring illusions around him. “Let him go,” he clenched his fists, almost crushing Yeosang’s necklace in his grip. “Please, let him go.”

“Yunho, I love you. You know I do. But I will take your hatred of me to my grave rather than missing a moment like this. You are about to witness great things happening.” The baron said, snatching a torch from one of the cloaked men and drawing it closer and closer to Yeosang, studying his face. The vampire hissed and bared his fangs, thrashing his body against his restraints like a caged animal, his eyes blazed like rubies reflected through sunlight, bright that even the torchlight seemed dim. “What a gorgeous face you have. But I have more than yearned to see paleness like yours burn in holy water. What a pity.”

He lowered the torch at an air’s strand away from Yeosang’s hair, but Yunho charged towards him and pulled him away by his collar. “ _Basileus_ , stop this. Punish one’s wrongdoings if you must, but do not sink so low into your vanity as to humiliate them when they are have already fallen.” A sob was trapped in his throat. And many more would come had he released it. Terrified tears outlined his eyes, his teeth chattered although he gritted them, and his hand quivered shamefully around the baron’s shirt. The torch stood right between their faces, shading the man’s most horrifying features. His yellow sclera, the green of his teeth, and those golden hairs that had grown on his eyelids.

The baron scoffed, then passed the torch back to the cloaked man. “Really,” he said, then pivoted on his heel and stomped onto Yeosang’s head until his cheek was fully buried into the soil and his shoulders gave in. “Judas’ whore, I tell you,” and spat on the vampire’s head.

As Yunho took a step forward, his body fell still when he felt the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed into the back of his neck. He heaved out a furious breath, lifting his hands to the level of his shoulders. “Basileus! You say I’m like a son to you, but you won’t love me like a father! Don’t let him burn, please! Please, for the love of God, release him!”

“Yunho, you’ve never-”

“He knows about my brother,” Yunho confessed before despair overcame him. “He knows him! He’s seen him! Please…Please, believe me. He said my brother’s name. He’s met him and he knows where I can find him!”

“Yunseo is long dead, you foolish child!”

“But nobody knows where! Nobody has ever found his body! Nobody has ever told me anything about him! Not even you! When you were supposed to be the one to care for me! You took away my last memory of him when you know how much I miss him!…So please. Please let him speak to me.” He huffed, shivers traversing his back like a crossfire. “Please. If you love me as much as you say you do, then please…Don’t kill him. Banish him if you must, but I beg of you don’t kill him. Let me hear him. Let me hear about my brother.”

“I would believe you with all my heart, dear, but I believe your delusions are-”

“Search his pocket.”

“…What?”

“The pocket of his vest. Search it.”

He puffed out a mocking laugh, then gestured the cloaked men to do as Yunho ordered. They lifted Yeosang’s inanimate body to reach the pocket in question, revealing eyes that had entirely darkened to crimson, and blood pouring out of them in clear lines down the burns on his neck. The same blood that had burned the roof of Yunho’s mouth like wine burned his chest. The blood he drank to swear loyalty to him. Yunho watched him, depleted of strength, wondering how many more ways Yeosang would bleed for him.

Inside the pocket was a small satchel, and within it was a thick silver ring of the Jeong’s family’s crest, and the family’s byword carved inside of it.

“You see?…I- I know him. I know him well, and he has never hurt me. You let him live, or I swear to Christ I will take my own life. When you’ll be most joyous. In front of you. I’ll fucking slit my own throat open.”

“You would never.”

“I will. If you kill him, then I will not be far behind. You’ve taken enough from me.”

The baron swung the torch like a sword across Yunho’s face with a demonic groan, staring at him with eyes of sheer insanity, then unsheathed his pistol and held it at Yunho’s forehead. He was fuming, sweat trickling down his temple.

“…And yet neither of you servants of God have the courage to pull the trigger.”

His finger trembled against the trigger, eyes wider and wider, pushing the boundaries of his orbits. His teeth crushed under the pressure of his jaw, his temples pulsated violently.His eyes seared into the young man he adored like a son, but who was grateful for that was not family. Years he had awaited for Yunho to grow so he would love him like a man. But the more he grew, the more he carved in stone he became. Resistant to fire and immune to water. He had carved himself into someone who would never love him back. Basileus growled like a wild beast giving into his libidinal rabidness, then tossed the pistol to the ground. “Banish him! Banish him and may he never cross paths with Yunho again! Chain him and muzzle him!”


	6. The Muse Of Malevolence

Seonghwa wiped his hands roughly, dipping them one last time in the pink, bloodstained water where human hairs floated, then he grabbed a brush and started scrubbing underneath his nails. He poured a cup of clean water to rinse off all the remaining dried blood in the creases of his hands. Before he went back upstairs, he threw the bloody raven masks into the fire. His feet were feathers against the carpet and his breath was one with the still winds, but inside his chest was a calamitous force anticipating to implode.

He pulled a chair beside Yeosang’s bed and took his hand. Although he was under covers, he was still cold. While he sat next to him he was reminded of all things bright and gentle. He cleaned and bathed him, and wept while wrapping his wounds in bandages. His beautiful, once smooth and velvety skin. “Dove,” he sighed, touching the bindings around his throat. He smiled. “Welcome back,”

Yeosang blinked his way out of his blur, his shoulders jolting at the first breath. He touched his neck, speaking full sentences through ragged breaths. While he accommodated himself with the new reality, Seonghwa stood up and filled him a wine glass with blood. “Look at me,” he said, laying an arm across Yeosang’s back, supporting him into a sitting position with all of his strength so the other won’t have to. Yeosang blinked slowly, and each time he did he rubbed his eyes rougher, he stared in utter confusion at the flakes of dried blood that rained down from his eyelashes. “How did that happen?”

A pitiful sob was lodged in Yeosang’s chest. In his slumber he had visited so many lives. He saw family and friends, little ones clinging to him. He saw himself with Yunho, and Yunho had red eyes. He saw himself enveloped into the vapidity of the human ideal, drinking in the tranquility of their meridian of peace. And when his vision deviated to realities he’s seen with his own eyes, he forced himself into awakeness. “…I don’t know.”

“Dove. My prince, you must tell me. Was it your beloved human?”

In response came a bewildered sob, then a head shake. His eyes were flooding with tears, and as they fell, so did the blood cinders. The white of his eyes had now brightened to pink. “He is yours to kill, but I will bring him to you if you order me to,” he said as he served him the blood-filled glass.

Yeosang took it in shaking hands. “We shall wait and see what happens. Whose blood is this?”

“Since when do we name our food?”

Smiling, Yeosang agreed with a nod and took a long sip. It revitalised him into a new being, forging the sensation of his wounds healing to perfection. He was quick to delve into the addiction of blood-drinking, taking sip after sip, gripping the glass tightly, his toes curling beneath the covers.

Seonghwa wiped the blood away from the corner of his mouth, then licked it off his thumb. “I’ve never questioned your actions, nor have I ever judged you, but I truly hope you know what you are doing.”

“I am taking back everything they have stolen from us, Seonghwa. That is what I am doing. I know it sounds perilous, but have faith in me.”

“Even in the state you are now, will you still do it?” Seonghwa asked cautiously, taking a pair of scissors into his hand and gently cutting across the bandages.

Yeosang’s eyes fell closed, cringing at the sensation. It tickled, but in the worst of ways. “I will never stop. I’ve led everyone into believing I was dead once. I can always do it again,” he spoke as he stared into the bright moon hidden behind rain clouds while Seonghwa unfolded his bindings. “How does it look?” But Seonghwa’s face answered more clearly than words ever could. “Ah. That bad?”

“I will bring them to you. Every man in a raven mask. I will do it, regardless of what you ask of me. I will do anything if it means never seeing burns like these on you again. And you’ve bled so much.”

“If fate wants me to bleed, then so I will, for bleeding has never killed me. Fate isn’t made to accommodate the undead, you see. Bleeding means death only for humans. But what lies beyond this death for us?— one should ask fate. Am I going to bleed my way back into living?”

“You’re right. We’ve rebelled before fate for so many years that she had abandoned us.” Seonghwa laughed softly, running his hand lovingly through Yeosang’s hair. “I love it when you speak like this. You sounded so much like your father there.”

“…Really?”

“…Really. He would be very proud of you,” he smiled gently like an older brother would. He and his lover, Hongjoong, have once been the oldest of their group. Neither came from the same family, but once their names have united through ceremony it was as if they had never been strangers. He and Hongjoong have been assigned as Yeosang’s personal guards and confidants, but this hierarchy was inexistent when they were together. Sometimes Yeosang would go on short journeys with them just to give the two lovers time alone. But there have also been nights when he joined them. They had been scattered all across the country with their own families when the civil war began, and those who were the farthest away from Graz have fled the country completely. Yeosang was believed to be the only one left alive in his purest form for he was the only one who has never left the city. And years later appeared the rumours that Jeong Yunseo was murdered, with his body never to be found. “And I. I’m proud of you too. I will never forgive myself for leaving you like the coward I am.”

“Nonsense. I’m glad you left. Hongjoong was ill back then, wasn’t he? You’ve all done the right thing. It’s a miracle I survived. My reward was not losing any of you.”

“You’re too kind,” Seonghwa smiled, tipping Yeosang’s chin up to clean the skin around the wound one more time before bandaging them again. “I almost forgot. I have information on those injections.”

“Oh, do you? Aren’t you efficient?”

“Please, the lack of security is laughable. It appears your intuition was correct. They are indeed formulating a substance very similar to an antibody, and they plan to release it in the form of a vaccine. It contains something called _argethium_ that will have the same effect on us like silver does. For now it’s only the school students and staff who have taken it. And few privileged others— Yunho included. Although you said he is taking them often, but I found no information of the sort there. I also found something of a medical file with his name on it, but a surprising amount of fields have been left empty, such as pre-existing conditions or medication.”

“Is that so…” Yeosang asked rhetorically in a pensive tone. He held his finger against his lips, rummaging through the mist in his mind, but he could only remember the beginnings of his thought, everything he’s said before it all went dark.

“It’s quite interesting how there was no information about his blood there.”

Yeosang flicked his eyes over to him with more faith in his sapience and perceptivity than in his own. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“I just thought,” Seonghwa trailed on, tucking Yeosang’s hair behind his ear. “What a splendid place your mind must be, and what a cynosure you are to my eyes.”

Laying his hand over his, Yeosang leaned into his touch, kissing his palm, then curled it into a soft fist and clutched it to his chest. “Now you understand?”

“I do,” his eyes bore into him, lavishing him in praise and reverence. “I do, prince. What did they call it again? Apocalypse?”

✝︎

“Yunho, you can’t possibly be returning to work already, treasure. You haven’t eaten anything, and you haven’t taken any of your medicine yet! You worry me so much, dear!” The baron shouted, following him with groggy steps, but Yunho had mastered the art of cancelling every noise that came from his mouth. He slammed the doors to the library with such ire that Jongho dropped all of his books in fear.

As a form of apology, Yunho picked all of his books up and carried them over to their desks, not yet exchanging a word. There was nothing to exchange, after all. Yunho’s mental state was an apotheosis of a haunted house. Poltergeists roamed around him like an expectant spider awaiting for its prey to give its last breath upon its web. There was wrath in his eyes. Enough to send an angel into banishment.

 _I want to help you_ , Jongho wrote on a small piece of paper and sled it over to Yunho when he sat next to him. They have both been unable to write ever since the incident. Vampire hunters knocked at his door, politely demanding him he turned every light off. He hasn’t seen anything that night, but Yunho threatened to take his own life more times than he was comfortable with, and the younger could only expect the worst.

 _How?_ Yunho wrote back.

Jongho’s hands trembled with the regret of his actions. From his pocket he took a small envelope with a powdery substance inside. Yunho looked at him quizzically. “…Soporific. It will buy you some time. But you have to go tonight.” Jongho whispered. It has become their only mean of communicating.

Yunho wanted to shake his head with all of his might. In spite of all the hatred he harboured in his heart towards the baron, he did not have it in him to involve pure Jongho in his wrathful affairs. If he wanted revenge, he wanted to do it on his own. “Are you sure?”

A nod. “If you go, I go. And maybe we will find each other again when all of this is over…I don’t know what happened to that vampire, but I heard things. It sounded like he was in a lot of pain. And no one should go through that. But this man…Hyung, he’s reeking of so much evil I cannot sleep in my room anymore. I sense horrible things coming from him. And I don’t want him around,” he sighed remorsefully “Whatever I’m about to do, I’m sure God will find it in him to forgive me. And if not…maybe there is a place for me too.”

“There is,” Yunho wrapped an arm around him and held him to his chest. “There is, I’m sure there is. You’re too good for this world.”

Much like vampires, the Jeong family had never been exempted from hearsay or speculations about about consorting with the devil. For the past years, Yunho seemed to have overcome those rumours, as people began praising him for his goodheartedness. Except Jongho. From the moment he’s met Yunho, he’s sensed a slumbering evil within him. A supernatural power that he had been born with, and also one that was under his control completely. It was as if he sold his soul and he quartered the devil in his chest across the years, until this devil was stripped of all the means of escaping, and now he was at Yunho’s feet. But despite this, Yunho has never done anything evil. He cursed and appeared careless in the face of the world’s issues. He had flaws just like everyone else, but he chose to live this mortal life as what was widely known as a ‘holy being’.

And this was exactly the reason why Jongho chose to go if Yunho did. If it came to Yunho running away from the mansion, only hell on earth would follow. Lightning setting the roof on fire, a chandelier crashing and burning the house from the inside.

That evening they served dinner awkwardly, with Yunho sitting at the opposite side of the table from the baron, with Jongho right next to him. His portions were as small as a mouse’s, and even after those he felt full. He refused to eat as a form of protest. He also revolted by not saying a word to the doctor during his second visit within that time frame, and when he was implored to take his medication, he walked away and locked himself in his room.

While Jongho took the baron to the oratory on the floor below to pray like they did every evening, Yunho prepared their tea, mingling the soporific powder with the sugar as he knew the baron loved his tea as sweet as syrup. He did so with a wicked sort of calm in his actions. With the amount of minutes he spent sleeping in the last days, all that could have been a dream. He dreaded the moment he would see Yeosang again. He longed for him beyond words, but in this longing there was terror such as when the core of a ripe fruit was often poisonous.

In his mind there was universe. A landscape of celestial bodies, heirlooms of ancient gods and names of myth buried in constellations. There were colours never before seen by the human eye, fires and explosions, collisions and planetary oppositions. But there was alsoforeboding silence. There was nothing that sound could travel through. It was a vast world with everything but sound.

His tea was still and unsweetened, of a vapid and translucent pink. He drank only because it reminded him of the colour of Yeosang’s lips after they kissed, and after he sucked the wine on his fingers. Before he slept he sometimes remembered the feeling. How much ardour there was inside him. Only God could have cursed him into making his arms so warm and welcoming.

Basileus was talking nonsense once again. Something about his day. Something about vampires. Colourfully cursing them. Cursing just about everyone who wasn’t himself or Yunho. Or Jongho, because he was the only person in the world who knew his filthiest sins.

Which is why Jongho also wanted this man to stay away from both him and Yunho. Mostly Yunho. ‘Oh, dear, if Yunho was a woman, or if he loved me as he is, I would have ——” and it had all stopped there.

After they served their tea, they withdrew to their rooms. Before they separated, Yunho and Jongho shared a nod, then they went to prepare for their escape.

But as soon as the door to Yunho’s bedroom shut, the baron had opened it again. Without knocking or announcing his arrival. After Jongho informed him about his profane fantasies, it had all become clear why. There must have been a time when Basileus experienced an erection after seeing Yunho’s bare ankles.

“I know you hate me, dear, but know I love you very much. Please remember I swore to your father to protect you for the rest of my life. I promised him, Yunho. I only think of you. You know this, yes?”

Standing before the mirror, Yunho wiped the red gemstone with a clean handkerchief while peeking at the baron’s reflection behind him. Basileus was a hideous man.

The corner of the handkerchief caught the tip of the gemstone, and when Yunho tried to pull it away, he heard an almost inaudible sound of something clicking. He opened the gemstone like a locket, raising his eyebrows at the drops of blood the size of a dust particles mingling at the bottom.

“You haven’t spoken to me the entire day. I was hoping you would understand. Everything I do is for you, my treasure. You’ve made me into a better man. I let him go like you asked me to.”

Yunho bit the inside of his cheek to hold himself from laughing. He lifted his eyes to his reflection, lowering his collar before proceeding to put Yeosang’s necklace on. “I think you should leave my room now. You’ve done enough.”

“Will you not look at me at all?”

“I’d rather not.”

“You know how much it upsets me when you treat me this way.”

Yunho rolled his eyes, then went to pick the shirts lying about. They were to remain there for another five months, but in that moment Yunho searched for just about anything, any other place to look at so his eyes won’t gravitate towards the atrocity of a man that stood in his doorway.

“I want you to know that I devote my life to you. I love you very much, Yunho. I love you like you are my-”

“Like you son?”

“Yes…Yes, I love you like you are my son. You’re like a son to me. You’ve always been. I care for you.”

“…I don’t think you do.”

Basileus’s eyes trembled as if lost in a bead maze, a particularly green vein surfacing from his temple to his forehead. “What do you mean?”

He has always thought of Yunho’s eyes upon him as a superior privilege. When Yunho would point somewhere, he would always look at his hand. When he drank something, he always looked at his lips. Yunho was a delight to look at. As he grew, he bloomed into this creature of terrifying beauty, a splendour in his manners and demeanoursof adonisian proportions. Basileus walked alongside him as if Yunho was a masterpiece by his own hand, laying him into a life of luxury and loving him purely. Until he didn’t.

“You’ve tried to make me believe I was insane for the longest time. I’m starting to think it’s true. Perhaps I have gone crazy. Perhaps there has once been someone to carve my skull open and plant the seed of insanity in me. And now that there is nothing else left in me, this insanity had so much room to grow.”

“Oh,” Basileus swallowed heavily, too low and worthless to step within Yunho’s godly circle. He would renounce religion and steal God’s crown just to kiss his hands. “Is- Is it the unholy one? Has he done something to you? Has he touched you?”

“Maybe so. He’s done things to my heart that I have many times denied. He’s opened it and welcomed my slumbering madness in and now I am able to smile and laugh again.”

Breaths came out of Basileus’ dry mouth as wheezing wind on the plumes of delusion. He wore madness better than he wore his skin. He was a licentious mortal serving his own soul as offering to a god, but the god would never lower his eyes to him. At church he called Yunho an angel and prayed for him before anyone else and confessed his love for the younger before crucified Jesus more times than he said his own name.

Only for a moment of a blink and an intake of breath where the _unholy_ found him and batted his eyelashes. All the years Basileus had spent adoring him unconditionally— like a son or not, building him churches and temples and other places of worship, for him to offer himself at the price of a peasant to the devil’s scion.

Yunho smirked. “I would like to rest now, if you don’t mind.”

✝︎

Jongho knocked into the window frame when it was safe to come out. He had investigated the mansion grounds for vampire hunters— his colleagues and friends, very likely, and when he spotted no one at that hour, he went back to signal him to come out.

Yunho jumped out the kitchen window, then snuck a hooked wire back under the frame to lock it from the inside. He went to fetch his horse, relieved to see that Jongho had prepared him for departure beforehand. “Hyung, here,” Jongho said, passing him a glass recipient the size of his palm with a clear liquid inside. “It’s for healing burns. Hopefully he will allow you to use it.”

“You made this?”

“…As someone who formulated vampire poison, I can also formulate antidotes. It might not heal the burns completely, but it does have an emollient effect.”

Yunho nodded and pocketed the bottle. “Thank you. I owe you so much.”

“Repay me by coming back safe. You know where you can find me.”

“I do,” Yunho gathered him in his arms tightly so that he would not look at him. Sometimes his face was more readable than black against white. The only issue then was that he knew nothing certain. Doubt covered his face as well as the night did, but Jongho would still be able to read it.

They separated without a final word when they reached the cathedral, each taking a different road, but even through that darkness they still looked back over their shoulder for each other.

The road to Thal was like a journey through a poorly built fictional setting. At times it was as smooth as familiar land, other times it was like entering a maze where one’s mind created the obstacles. The gas lamp he carried only hindered his vision once he reached the outskirts of the city, but left it on for the sake of other possible travellers or small wildlife.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back as if he wanted to scream. The air around Thal felt like a mass of malevolent miasma, as harmful as an airborne disease. He sped through it like dreams shifted in his sleep, eyes squinted and focused in deciphering the landscape the moonlight painted ahead of him, sparing no glance to the angel of death gaining on him.

✝︎

“Is that so,” Seonghwa wondered, smiling with his temple leaned against the window. “You gave it to him.” He closed his eyes and imagined, touching his own necklace. “But have you told him the meaning behind it?”

He saw Yeosang shaking his head in his reflection in the window. He touched his own throat like he did when he wanted to feel the smoothness of the necklace’s velvet. Now it was entirely wrapped in bandages. It was so evident on his face that he worried he might never be able to wear his necklace again. “But not once I’ve believed that what I did was foolish.”

“I didn’t say it was. I’m just wondering because you seem to be upset with him. Angry, rather. I want to understand what you feel…but it seems that you don’t know what you feel either. I-” he stopped himself, interrupted by the sudden sight of a yellow light travelling quickly through the dark. “…Dove?”

Yeosang lifted his eyes from the ground, then joined Seonghwa by the window. Neither said a word, but Seonghwa heard Yeosang’s knuckles crack when he clenched his fist. He clicked his tongue, then looked away. “What I feel about him,” he said mockingly, joined by a scoff, in a low tentative to conceal his true heart. Seonghwa smiled at his attempts, reminding himself the true reason he called him ‘dove’. Yeosang robed himself, eyes stubbornly down at the ground. Seonghwa ran his hand through his hair, then turned him around by the shoulders and tied his hair back. “I want him on my side. I will love him after.”

✝︎

Yunho disregarded the part where he checked the doors and went straight to breaking in through the window. The room he found himself in was a lounge with long abandoned pieces of furniture that was more home for spiders than it was for anyone else. The walls were so empty that that echo of his huffs traversed the corridors so clearly. For a moment he set the lamp down to count his silver bullets, but it wasn’t until he opened the cylinder and two bullets fell out that he realised how much his hands had been shaking. He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sound of silver rolling and scraping against wood. Too loud for how sharp his senses had gotten.

“The audacity,” Yeosang said with a sigh, kicking the bullet back in Yunho’s direction. “To come to me bearing a firearm when I spared your life at your request.”

Yunho wished he had more time to analyse his tone. It was dark— much darker than his usual voice was, and mildly raspy. “I wasn’t going to use it.”

“Really,”

“Yes, really. I couldn’t raise a weapon at you.”

“…He says as he counted his bullets just a moment ago,” Yeosang laughed, then after a rigid silence, came a sigh. “What have you done…After I gave you another chance,” he took steps forward within the light’s reach. His eyes were ablaze. “And after you swore loyalty to me. What in the world have you done,”

“Your anger is justified, but I won’t tolerate you accusing me of something I have never wanted to take part in. At least let me explain myself first.”

“You saw them taking me away. You saw how it burned me. You stood there petrified as if any of those men had the courage to kill you. You speak of lawful immunity, and yet you tremble like a child when someone points a weapon at you. You fucking coward,” he charged towards him like a wild beast, but once their eyes met, he only grabbed his shirt and shoved him. Anger was unfolding within him like a pair of wings, but the look in his eyes were that of a heartbroken man. Anger had no place in him.

“I wish I could afford to play hero. You know I had to be careful about everything I did and said. I could have truly lost everything right then and there. You know as well as I do that they would have severed your head right then and there had it not been for me. Everything you’ve ever heard Basileus say about vampires, he meant it. He meant everything.”

“…That is,” Yeosang choked on his own words, overpowered by another surge of mixed emotions which he did not know how to manage. His lower lash line was slowly flooding with tears of anger, but his heart was vibrating in his chest with how much it yearned for Yunho during this time. “That is not what I am accusing you of. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Alright, then what are you saying?” In the second when Yeosang closed his eyes to gather himself, Yunho reached for his cheek and wiped away the tear before it had the chance to fall. “Tell me,”

“I listened to you and ‘made you feel something’. You cried on my shoulder and made me mourn with you for a person _I_ have murdered. I killed a human being in your name. I killed him for you. I killed him because you wanted him dead. But _him_? Who is he— that grotesque, poor excuse of a man, that you care so much about what he says? After what he’s done to you, and after the way he spoke about my kind. You know well enough that I could have killed him the moment he opened his mouth. But I didn’t. Once again, I didn’t because I thought of you. When he-” his next word came in the form of a hiss, turning his back to Yunho and wrapping his hands loosely around his throat to soothe the pain. Seonghwa had warned him not to tense his muscles too much.

“Be careful there,” Yunho said, approaching him carefully, touching his pocket to make sure the bottle Jongho gave him was still intact. The moment he set finger on Yeosang, his reflexes were sharper than the entirety of his mind, and he caught his wrist before he would scratch him. “Don’t do this. You know you’re hurt.”

“Unhand me.”

“Only if you let me have a look at your burns first.”

“I said unhand me.”

Yunho stared him down calmly for one more moment until Yeosang lowered his guard, then he pulled him closer and lifted him up into his arms rather roughly. His heart broke a little every time Yeosang laid a hand over his chest as a response to surprise and sometimes fear. It was a reaction of many layers and probably a more heartbreaking story that Yunho never wanted to see him do. He carried him to the floor above where the windows were larger and the moonlight was more merciful and candlelight seemed to stream from the first bedroom, so he decided to stop there. “I have something for you.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I didn’t ask if you want it or not,” Yunho sat him down on the ottoman chest at the foot of the bed, then took the bottle out from inside his pocket. “Praying this’ll work,” he then took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and poured several drops at first.

“What is that?”

“For your burns?”

“Did I not tell you to stop tending to my wounds like you would with yours.”

“Jongho made it. He understands vampire medicine better than I do. I’ll have to trust him. Now give me your wrist.”

Yeosang averted his eyes from him and gave him his hand as if he was about to take him for a dance against his will. He maintained them stubbornly still when Yunho kissed his hand. In the next moment he felt something wet and cold against his skin, very much like water that left a numb trail behind. He knew the place of the burn by heart, and how long it has been since he received it although he felt nothing. “Look,” Yunho said, smiling. He held his hand softly like it was a new born thing, much happier and relieved that the burn marks were gradually starting to brighten in colour. Yeosang only nodded with a repressed smile on his lips. “Show me the one on your neck?”

“No. Leave it. It’s fine.”

“Please. Maybe it’ll help you.” But Yeosang shook his head, refusing to look his way for as long as he once did.

There was an underlying worry in Yeosang’s heart that Yunho couldn’t yet reach. Undetermined arguments with his own self, conflicts with the world and the new life he found himself in. Whatever there was in his mind, Yunho could not blame him for it. He had never struggled to understand his goals and reasonings. Of course, only the ones he was graced enough to find out about. Yunho’s heart had more chambers than his own mansion had, but even the largest ones were so cramped with mnemonic fragments and nightmares mingled with real experiences that he barely had any space left for Yeosang to lay comfortably along with all of the feeling he’s brought with him. In truth, there might have been, but there was only one lock and chain left to restrain the flood of past events. He sighed. “You’re right, you know,” he said “About what you said before. You’ve done a lot for me. My only regret at the moment is being unable to repay you right away.”

Yeosang lifted his wrist closer to the candlelight, inspecting the healing burn in detail for the first time, relief in his eyes, but yet too much pride to smile. “What’s stopping you?”

“…Things that are happening now. If I’m not careful, I could slip.”

“But what is it that you want to do? You haven’t told me, I believe.”

“…I haven’t told you,” the corner of Yunho’s lips twitch in a tentative smile, then he dropped his gaze low, to his hands. “You see, I’ve never tolerated it when people tried to change me and force within their frame of uniformity. I wanted to live this part of my life being left alone. At peace with my crumbling self. ‘I want to have nice things as well’ as children would say. But it appears these days that right has been taken from me. I hate what the world has become,” his lips remained parted, eager to lay his soul out. “And I hate that it has taken me with it and turned me into a shadow.”

“You’re not a shadow. Your name is known everywhere here.”

“I am. And that night…That cursed night has proven it to me. I will always be in their shadow. I don’t want that anymore. Do you remember when we’ve met, I was so desperate to dig out the past? And right now I am wondering why. What was I thinking? Why seek to understand something that I have not once sympathised with?…I can let go of it all. Nobody is coming back. It will be just me. Hell, this is why my wife ran away like that, isn’t it? Because she wanted nothing to do with my family. She wanted to protect herself and the baby from being hunted by vampires because of this name. The same with you. This is why you came after me. Because you saw my brother’s name in the sketchpad. Whoever manipulated me into thinking I was important has done such an impeccable job that I am so furious with myself.”

“But now you are close to escaping it. Don’t be upset with yourself.”

“I owe it to you. You’ve unburied me. You’ve made me understand the importance of self-preservation and you’ve made me aware about my decaying soul…And you’ve done so without making me feel like I’m losing my mind,” he balled his fists softly, then tighter and tighter “Unlike him,” his tone darkened significantly, and Yeosang had to blink twice to ascertain himself that he did not see a red spark in Yunho’s eyes. “He, who has so desperately tried to severe me from my own self. Oh, all the times when he’s left my house when I irritated him. Just now I am starting to understand the looks he gave me. How many times he could have killed me if he wasn’t obsessed with me. The despair in his eyes to transfix my head with a bullet,” he sighed, rethinking the absurdity of it all, then leaned forward, face buried in his palms. Yeosang leaned his hand on his back. “He threw my injections and all of my medication away. A few days back.”

A ray of hope as soft as relief brushed across Yeosang’s cheeks, until he remembered that Yunho was not aware of the truth he knew. “But why would he, after all the times he’s pressured you into taking them?”

“I threatened to never take them again if he didn’t let me see you. It went like this for days. We’ve fought every waking hour. Until he started threatening to send me to the psychiatric ward again. So I said to him that I would take them if he left me alone. Then he went rabid. He yelled at me for so long that blood started spurting out of his mouth. And then he grabbed the kit and threw it at me. I’ve dodged it, but it crashed against the wall and made a horrible mess,” he clicked his tongue “Thought the bastard was finally going to breathe his last. But he lives,” he chuckled “Ah, how many more times must I make him burst a vein before he caves in.”

A silent moment came when Yeosang pondered. He was not the kind to experience anxiety to that extent, but the idea of Yunho returning to a place that was so evidently dangerous to his life made his burns flare up into hurting. “Is that what you want to do?”

“I can feel his dementia. Whenever he is in front of me, I feel his dementia in the palm of my hand, and every time he opens his mouth to speak I crush it just a little. I wring just a bit of life out of him. I’ve warned him. I said to him: Basileus, you shouldn’t love me. It won’t do you any good.”

“And what are the consequences for not heeding your warning? What fate have you written for this man?”

“Well,” Yunho concealed a smirk behind his fingers “Maybe I can finally give you a complete answer to what brings me pleasure.”

Yeosang giggled, dropping his forehead on Yunho’s shoulder. “I am proud of you. Darling, I’m so proud. I knew there was power in you. And you’ve finally found it. I want to see you using it wisely. I would love to see it,” he cupped his cheeks warmly and placed a short kiss on his lips “I know this might not help as much now, but to me you’re just this. The you who’s standing before me now. To me you’re not in anyone’s shadow. You’re so strong on your own.”

“And you. I can only dream of being as powerful as you are. And I know you’ve used this power over me too, but how could I ever complain,” he brushed the tip of his nose against Yeosang’s, then kissed his forehead, letting his lips linger there for a moment until he felt Yeosang’s cheeks warming up under his touch. “Are you alright with me looking at your wound now?”

“Ah, I should have known you were trying to bribe me,” Yeosang laughed silently, gathering his hair into his fist and tilting his head to unwrap the bandages, then halfway through, Yunho took over, slower and more cautious. When it reached the last layer, it made a soft sound fabric peeling from skin which hurt Yunho’s ears more than more pain Yeosang’s ever shown.

“Have you wrapped these yourself? It looks quite neatly done.”

“No, I’ve had someone help me.”

Yunho flicked his eyes over to him so rapidly that he hadn’t realised the bottle wasn’t even open when he wanted to pour more. “Who?”

“I’d love for you to meet him,” Yeosang smiled, then stood up shortly to check the corridors, looking to his left, then his right. There was no light coming from anywhere else. “Seonghwa?”

Next followed a string of black miasma springing from the ceiling down, expanding in shape and shifting into a hoard of winged creatures that flew in circles as they took the shape of a human silhouette. Seonghwa’s figure was slowly traced out of shadows, head slightly bowed with his hand on his chest. “Yes, dove,” he smiled, then it diminished into a confused expression when he saw that Yeosang had taken his bindings off. He guided him back into the bedroom where he found a third person that he needed no name to know who it was.

“Yunho, meet Seonghwa. We’ve once been part of the same family.”

Standing up and extending his hand for a handshake, Yunho held his breath when this Seonghwa person pulled him by the wrist, then grabbed his face and tilted his head in different directions while examining all sides of him. “Mhm, I see,” he mumbled to himself, tilting Yunho’s head back, eyeing his throat. “Good man. A pleasure to meet you.”

“…You as well,”

“Has he done anything, dove? Should I throw him out?”

“No, nothing of the sort. Been only meaning to introduce you. Have I bothered you? You disappeared for a while.”

“I was,” Seonghwa trailed on, looking around the room for no apparent reason. “Taking care of some pests. It’s all sorted now,” he said, picking up the bandage and rolling it into his hand. “Why have you taken this off?” He asked, his questioned answered right away by the sight of Yunho applying a strange substance on Yeosang’s neck. He was gentle with his actions, brushing lightly along the pinks marks, and Yeosang did not seem to be in any pain. “You best not be hurting him.”

Yunho shook his head. “It’s slow, but it’s working.”

“…Is that why you’ve come here? To heal his wounds?”

“It’s partly my fault that all of that has happened. He’s protected me before, and healed me even when there was little between us,” he lowered the handkerchief and poured a more generous amount before lifting Yeosang’s head up and reapplied the medicine. “I’d do anything for him to forgive me.”

“Anything,” Yeosang echoed, looking at Yunho’s distorted shadow casted over the wall; how much it looked like he had grown black wings. “He’s yours to kill. But bring me his gold rings.”


	7. The Spring Of All Life’s Horror

Phantoms gathered over the city of Graz, one by one, then all at once, like blood-starved colonies of butterflies and bats. It was a day colder than the ninth circle of hell, the seventh week since the city has been cursed with no sunlight. The Innere Stadt had slowly succumbed into darkness and became a ghost city in itself.

Yunho’s heart throbbed forebodingly in his ribcage that he had to wrap his arms around himself to keep it from collapsing. He was waiting in the doctor’s office at a time when, on every other day, he would have been deep asleep.

“Thank you for waiting,” the doctor said as he walked in, then shook Yunho’s hand and sat himself on the other side of the desk. “How interesting to see you here all by yourself. Are you well?”

“I am. I’ve been doing alright lately, but, um,” he smiled in embarrassmentrethinking his request. “I’m only here for a rather straightforward question that I think I was owed answers too long ago.”

The doctor shook his head hopelessly, his eyes rolling in a way that he had expected it. “I see,” he sighed softly through his nose, hesitantly opening up his file. He seemed to aimlessly flip through the pages as if to buy himself more time. “And what would that be?”

“This illness of mine— What is it called? And those injections you’ve been prescribing me. I’ve been such an ignorant fool to take them so mindlessly.”

“Well,” he paused, his mouth hanging open, but the shape of his lips changed according to what he had meant to say next, but he could not decide. “That is not information I’m allowed to give you, unfortunately,”

Yunho blinked. He leaned back just a little, then searched for the chair’s armrest and gently grabbed its manchette, drawing patterns through the chenille. “I have the right to it.”

The doctor looked towards the door, waiting for several seconds to pass in which he listened for any unusual sounds, then he stood up and searched for a file inside a drawer. “Swear to me you won’t tell anyone anything.”

Yunho fearfully lifted his hand to take the file, nodding heartily although he was confused. There was such a high surge of thoughts into his head that it had crashed over the functions of his other systems and now he felt nothing. He opened the file thinking there were many pages he had to search through, but his heart dropped when he saw that there were just two, and most fields have been left empty. “So little,”

“…A certain acquaintance of yours wanted most of your information erased. And that is all I will allow myself to say.”

“You have no right to hide these things from me. Everything you’ve ever told me and everything you’ve ever prescribed me— There’s nothing here. Why does this ‘certain acquaintance’ have access, and not me?”

“All you need to know is that you must continue taking those injections, as they will only do you good. This I can swear to you.”

“I did not come here for this. I’m not leaving until you tell me the truth-” he gasped his next words out when the sound of a gunshot flashed across the corridor. The doctor stood up right away and foolishly opened the door to see for himself, only to be kicked down to the ground by a tall man in a raven mask. The doctor rolled to his side, gathering within himself, coughing and groaning.

And the man who stood in the doorway watching him struggle to breathe was none other than Basileus, whose face was as plain as engraved in stone, and in his hand he held a silver pistol. “All that faith I placed in your hands Yunho…And you’ve abandoned it,” he said with a sigh, gesturing vaguely to the man behind him.

He dashed across the room like a phantom, grasping Yunho by the nape of his neck, yanking him forward and kicking him in the stomach until he collapsed on the floor. He drew a breath to protest, but the entire weight of another human fell on top of his back. A thick hand grasped him by the hair and yanked his head back, then thrusted the entirety of a syringe’s needle into his throat. He opened his mouth wide to scream in the agonising pain ascending all over him, from his scalp to the underside of his nails to the back of his tongue. His vision went dark as if consumed by termites, his body devoured by a pain so great that it started to feel numb; he felt his limbs being torn apart and his stomach pressed into a bed of nails.

“Basileus!” The doctor screamed, lifting a pleading hand “He hasn’t done anything wrong, please! I told him nothing! Don’t do this to him, he doesn’t deserve this! I’m begging you, he’s already been through enough! Please, be a good man like you claim to be, and let him have this!” Yunho heard him say clearly, though his vision was gradually being buried alive.

Until the sound of another gunshot came, engulfing his hearing into a continuous ring so loud that he was sure he had already passed into his afterlife. The last he heard was the thud of a body falling onto the floor, and his cheek sinking into the blood of someone else.

✝︎

Sudden fires had bursted at the Jeong mansion at the unholiest hours of the night, burglars had been caught trying to break in by people in the vicinity, and yet still no news and no lights were seen coming from the house. At first it was just Jongho and his group checking the house, collectively worrying when day after day the door was found locked from the inside. The news started spreading that the house had been left empty for days and from there people began to speculate that Yunho had either been kidnapped or taken by vampires to fulfil the oath made years ago. Jongho and the others would skip classes and search for clues around the house instead, but before he would take initiative and break a window to force his way in, he suggested they went to Basileus’ house. He brushed away all the rumours from his mind. For the first time in his life he thought to himself that he’d rather Yunho was with his vampire lover than with anybody else.

“Oh, Jongho, are you here to help me pray?” The baron said, inviting them in, but only the two were allowed in his personal oratory. Jongho was not prepared, mentally and in terms of material, for a praying session with him, but he followed suit. The man seemed jovial and walked as if he was subduing an urge to skip like a child. His mouth was running faster than his legs, screaming as if hard of hearing, complaining about work and the lack of etiquette in the office, the weather, the people. The first thing that Jongho had picked up was that not once he uttered the word ‘vampire’ or any other derogatory term.

“Please pray for Yunho,” he said once they arrived in the oratory. Jongho’s shoulders jolted.

“…I haven’t seen him in a few days. He would never leave without telling me anything. I’m starting to worry.”

“You needn’t worry your pure mind. I will take very good care of him, as I love him like he’s my son. He will get better. He will return to us glowing like the sun. But he needs time.”

“But what happened?”

“He’s in a better place. A much better place than that house. He is warm and well fed. He’s made me very upset. He stopped taking his injections and he threatened to kill me. He threw the kit at me and burned all of his medicine in front of me!”

He forced his hands into Jongho’s hold like he always did when they prayed, and it wasn’t until then when the younger could finally take in the metallic smell on his hands. He’d recognised it from the time he was taught how to use a pistol, and how many washes it took for the smell to wear off. He abandoned the subject after the string of utter lies that spat out of his mouth, and pretended to pray. Basileus didn’t speak Latin, so what Jongho recited weren’t even prayers. He quoted the first paragraph from a fantasy book he was reading with the rhythm of a prayer just to get it done with. Basileus’ hands were as dry and wrinkly as a cadaver’s.

✝︎

“ _Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita…Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura…Chè la diritta via era smarrita,_ ” (In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood where the straight path was lost.)

Yunho quoted with his palm covering his eyes. His lips felt as though they had been left to dry in salt, as dry as the top of a beach where the sea never reached. His body felt heavy as if under the pressure of ten iron blankets, and his head under tight restraints. Although above him there was only air and the warmth of a fire.

“ _Godi, Fiorenza, poi che se’ sì grande…Che per mare e per terra batti l’ali…e per lo ’nferno tuo nome si spande…_ ” (Rejoice, Florence, since you are so great, That above sea and land you batter your wings and over Hell, your name spreads unbroken)

Beside him lied a dark book. He did not know which one. He had not looked at the cover, nor has he read the title, but from the smell of it, he could tell that many people have touched it. And if many people have read it, to him this meant that it was a painful book. It was thick with yellow pages and darker corners, from all the filthy men who spat on their fingers to prevent flipping more pages at once.

He had been reciting haphazard quotes for the past hour or less. But that room he was contained in time passed differently, if at all. It was quiet, but not the sort of quietness he asked for. He hadn’t been given anything to write with for the pen was too sharp and he might have used it to stab himself— or someone else with it. He hadn’t been given ink either because in his current state of mind he could drink it.

These were the type of things he overheard people say on the other side of the door. He didn’t like keeping his eyes open unless his name was called. The world beyond his eyelids was not better in any way, although scenery changed outside his control.

His brain had been swimming in a chronic exhaustion for so long that he hardly remembered a time when it was fully awake. How has he once been able to write essays and read books in five other languages at once, and at present sleep would waltz on his eyelashes, continuously changing between partners.

On the table beside his bed there was a steel jug filled with water. It used to be a porcelain one, but in his blind rage he tossed it at the stranger in a doctor’s uniform who asked him too many questions. Same ones every day. They cleared the shards before Yunho would think of slitting his wrists with them.

Sighing, he rolled to his side and mentally prepared himself for the Sisyphean effort of lifting himself up. He dug the heel of his palm into the mattress, gritting his teeth as he forced his muscles into working, but lethargy was quick to shove him back down. He opened his eyes out of instinct, but gasped in fear and closed them back.

The room spun like a carriage’s wheels when his eyes were open. He could only see bright colours as through a broken kaleidoscope, and nothing else. There was movement, there was blur, but no shape that he could make sense of.

Different parts on his arms and neck stung like bitten by a bug. He felt punctures in places his eyes couldn’t reach, and so little blood that his eyes couldn’t perceive. His brain floated within his skull smoother than a kite.

A knock at the door followed, but he refused to respond to it. The memories and dreams unraveling in his mind overcame his senses so vividly that the only thing able to drag him back into existence were hypnic jerks. Sometimes these visions featured familiar voices, sounds of laughter, or knocks at the door, and while he was still awake and naive, he would reply to these sounds.

“Yunho, are you awake, my treasure?”

He would answer them so excitedly that the doctors seemed to think his delusion was settling in like venom. Sometimes they would only warn him. Other times they would restrain him and thrust needles into his shoulder, then he would collapse onto the bed until the next knock at the door.

Basileus opened the door slowly, only peeking in at first. He entered the room together with a younger man in a black coat. Yunho hadn’t moved an inch. “We haven’t spoken much today,” he said it with a laughable amount of regret. “But I must ask you some things today. You’ve been here for some time now, and it hurts me to see you like this. It hurts me deeply.”

Yunho dragged his hand across his face. “You’re the one who brought me here, you bastard.”

“And I did so in order to protect you. Your words, dear, have gotten so outrageous, that I knew I needed to bring you back here. I feared you were going to hurt me after all I’ve done for you. Remember your first time here? You didn’t like it, but you felt much better after. I only want what’s best for you.”

With his hand over his eyes, Yunho allowed himself to drift off to sleep. Once upon a time there was something he could cover himself with.

Seconds passed, and their conversation was still halted. Eventually, Basileus gestured for the vampire hunter next to him to leave the room although Yunho was as unaware of his presence as he was of his own body. “That necklace you were wearing, the velvet one, with a red gemstone. That’s not yours. I know all of your jewellery and you own nothing like that. Whose is it?”

Yunho’s eyelids twitched open, but would just as easily fall back closed. He could not percept smell anymore, his tongue was numb and bitter in the back, and sound was travelling from his right ear to his left, back and forth. He shook his head.

“I don’t blame you. You’re still so young and fragile. You must still be longing for everyone. I should have been there to wipe your tears, and I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me. And now I am here to pay for my own ignorance. I will save you, Yunho.”

“From who?”

“From that vampire who planted the devil’s seed in your mind. But I cannot do this without you. Please, will you tell me his name?”

“No. Bring the doctors. Let them sedate me. Let them shock me. I will not tell you a thing. I’d rather slice my own tongue.”

“Then will you at least tell me why? What could he have possibly threatened you with that you are defending him so? What has he promised you? To bring the dead back? Has he promised you power?”

Yunho rubbed his eyes with the back of his fingers, then let his hands drop into death to his sides. He then blinked the blur out of his eyes slowly, his heart swelling with joy when he finally became able to see more colours again. The ceiling had an atrocious colour, but it was better than any of the paint water his vision had been reduced to. He took one breath, then another. After, he looked at Basileus and smiled. “You know we fucked, right?”

In that moment Basileus was a thing too detailed for his dying vision, but he could distinguish his navy blue suit and that one green vein on his temple that always made its appearance when he was about to explode with rage. “I- What? Yunho, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I was a completely different person before I found the taste of cock. I’m good now. I’m good.”

Basileus rose from his chair so suddenly that it chatted to the ground. “Yunho! The way you speak is-” onomatopoeia came out of his mouth next, erratic hand gestures, him trying to wipe his sweat but ending up spreading over his eye, him wiping the spit from his mouth, jealousy like rage spurring out of his orifices. “Oh, to besmirch your pride as a man like this, to stain the holy name of your family with slaving yourself to the devil’s scion. And then you cry and wonder why Isa left with the child.”

A titanic wrath rippled in Yunho’s temples, growling like a savage beast as he grabbed the book and tossed in right at Basileus’ thrumming vein. “Get out,” he groaned, at war with his lethargy “Get the fuck out or I swear to Christ I’ll bash your skull open.” Within Basileus’ second of hesitance, stunned with scare, Yunho grabbed the steel jug and threw it at him with all of his remaining power. He collapsed right after, his temples and jaw vibrating, heaving out breaths like a dragon who just spat fire. “Call them again! Call the church again and tell them to purge the devil out of me, I fucking dare you!”

Cupping his stinging cheek, Basileus’ teeth quaked in acrimony, chatters away from falling off completely. Out of blind impulse, he pulled his pistol out of its holster and held it right above Yunho’s forehead. “God will have you pay for this insolence. It is only by His will that I am not pulling this trigger.”

With his shaking hand, Yunho grabbed the barrel of the pistol and pressed it against his forehead. “You think I haven’t noticed how desperately you are trying to erase the people who are trying to make me see outside your frame?! I remember what you did to that man! He’s never done anything to betray you! He’s saved so many lives only for you to take his in a moment of asperity! So do it! Pull the trigger again!”

With a low growl, Basileus withdrew the pistol as if pushed by a supernatural force, then staggered back against the fallen chair when red flickered in Yunho’s eyes so vividly. He took one careful step towards the door, his expression changing drastically to a one that feigned calm and control. His fury had suddenly vanished and his cheeks had gained colour. Smiling, he let the door swing open freely as he shouted: “That man has protected you since you were a child, how could you have killed him?! You shot him before my very eyes and now you threaten _me_ as well?! After all those years I cared for you?!”

Yunho charged towards him, pushing Basileus’ body onto the floor, and while he crawled like a pig, reaching for his gun, Yunho kicked it away from him. By his hair alone he dragged Basileus all the way to the window and bashed his head through the glass, screaming death upon him from the pits of his lungs. Pairs of arms wrapped around him, pulling him away and tackling him to the ground.

He thrust his fangs through the first hand that had come into his reach, penetrating through veins and knuckle, tearing it off like a preying wolf. A needle thrusted into his shoulder, crests of pain crashing into his joints and nerves, but in those seconds before his body would collapse, he released one arm and reached for Basileus’ pistol, blowing the eye of the man who was so scarcely trying to restrain him. Fully released, he rolled onto his back and held the pistol aimed at Basileus. He fell frozen with fear like a rodent, lifting his arms up to his shoulders while mumbling pleading words that Yunho couldn’t distinguish.

When he found the power to stand up, Yunho spat the contaminated blood out of his mouth, his other hand remaining still. “I’ll take that knife you’re hiding,” he said calmly, disregarding the ache coursing through him. The pistol felt heavier than ever. “I said fucking give it!” Lacking patience, he shot Basileus’ foot, unsheathing the knife he was holding to his belt before fleeing.

“Sir, the serum isn’t working anymore. What do you want us to do with him?”

“He will not last long,” Basileus said “Tell the city.”

✝︎

_Suicide?!_

_Oh, this depression must have consumed him. He’s lost all of his family, then his wife left him as well. I cannot imagine…_

_The Jeongs were fated for tragedy. Saviours who could never save themselves. May he rest in peace._

Yeosang dragged the hood of his cloak over his eyes, turning away from the voices and hiding among the shadows. He leaned his back against the wall from the back entrance of the opera house, sinking his face into his palms and eventually dropping to his knees. Since last he saw Yunho his heartache had tormented him and clouded his insight, his throat had gone dry with all the sensations and needs to cry and scream and slash the throat of every living human.

When he heard more voices echoing from the other side of the road, he stood up and wrapped the cloak around himself as he made his way to Yunho’s mansion. The first pair of burglars who tried to break into his house unfortunately had a more tragic fate, as well as the vampire hunters who seemingly guarded the entrances.

It was a risky move that would only draw attention to their presence, Seonghwa said, which had led to their first argument in years. But because Seonghwa also had a partner he would give his life for, he could not blame Yeosang for the things’s he’s done.

“Dove, what should we do?”

Yeosang looked around him for where the voice came from, then stopped when he saw a red-eyed raven perched up on a low branch. He extended his arm as Seonghwa flew over and sat on the back of his wrist. “Why in the world have you possessed a bird?”

“Easier transportation,”

“Then see if you can find me a way inside. I’m done waiting.”

Seonghwa nodded and took off while Yeosang stood behind and performed the same ritual he had several days back. He bit his palm and let his blood pour down through the cracks in the dry soil, significantly fewer than last time. Blood-shedding flowers had bloomed from inside those crevices, but not enough to feed every mouth buried beneath them. He then laid his palms on the iron fence, his eyes alight. “The end of the world, you call it,” he smiled as he tightened his grip around the balusters and slowly bent them until snapping them off completely, creating a gap wide enough for a hoard of demoniacs to pass through. “Allow me to bring it to you, then.”

He looked back at the crimson flowers with trembling petals. The soil started rising and falling like one’s breathing’s chest, splitting open and creating rifts where indistinguishable whispers arose from. Yeosang smiled, and continued his walk through Yunho’s garden, not surprised at all to see Seonghwa already waiting for him at the conservatory door. “Do you think it’s true?”

Yeosang click his tongue. “No. He would never take his own life like that. But it is my fault. I mean, it could be my fault. I was so blinded. So careless.”

He walked as comfortably through Yunho’s mansion as he walked through his own, but there was a sense of unfamiliarity since he has never seen it in such darkness.

“Why are you blaming yourself?”

Their first stop was the library which was fortunately intact. Yeosang rushed to Yunho’s first bedroom, sighing in relief that the door was open. It appeared that there had been a fire in the centre of the room, unclear what had been burnt, but there were iron pieces and wood parts and circular things that seemed to look like lids. Yeosang picked one up, instantly realising that it was the kit Yunho kept his injections in.

“Because I let my guard down that night,” Yeosang said woefully while walking towards the desk, where he found many pieces of paper scattered all over. He read the words written on the biggest piece, his heart sinking when he recognised the title of Yunho’s essay. “I let him drink my blood…And then I let them take him away from me like the fool I am.”

“That was surprising for me as well. You could have easily defeated them.” Seonghwa added, picking another piece of paper up, the other half of the title page.

Yeosang collected all the torn pieces inside Yunho’s sketchpad, holding it safely to his chest as he remembered how much he wanted to burn it the first time he laid his hands on it.

Thrown onto the bed was one of Yunho’s old shirts that Yeosang clearly remembered him wearing before. Without a second thought, he took of his shirt and dressed himself in Yunho’s instead, loosely wrapping his arms around himself and gathering the fabric into his fists. It was cold and it bore no scent. “I should have been with him. I should have fed him more blood as well. I can’t imagine the pain he must be going through, and it’s all my fault. I should have been more aware.”

“But does he know what you’ve done to him?”

“He does. I’ve never doubted his mind. I only wish he didn’t have to pay for my incompetence.”

“Dove,” Seonghwa called on a tone severer than his usual one “It’s not like you to be so still and pity yourself for your own mistakes. There is still time. Dwelling on our own regrets won’t end his suffering.”

Yeosang sighed, then lifted his head and shook himself out of his melancholy. “Love has brought me down before, but I never learn, do I?” He stood up, regaining himselfslapped his cheeks softly. “I’m alright now.”

“I know. What else are we searching for here?”

“I think we have all the leads we need,” Yeosang said although he was still uncertain. He opened the nightstand drawer from the side of the bed he always slept in, where he found a necklace with a large locket as a pendant. He opened it, finding a folded note which read ‘Don’t ever search for me again’. Soughing, he put the necklace around his neck and secured it inside his shirt. Then taking the sketchpad back, he said “Right. I think we’re done here.”

“I think-” he began, interrupted by the muffled sound of a door cracking open downstairs, followed by gentle steps.

They rushed down the stairs, Yeosang’s heart beating frantically in his throat.

Standing as frozen as a threatened deer was Jongho at the other end of the foyer, coming from the conservatory. “There’s two of you,”

“Jongho,” Yeosang exhaled. He took a calm step towards him although he knew he was holding a pistol, never expecting the younger to drop it just to run into his arms. Bewildered beyond words, Yeosang patted his back.

“I’m glad it’s you. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m _so_ glad it’s you. I’ve been searching for you.”

“I was just about to search for you as well. Please tell me you know something.”

“Sir Basileus won’t tell me anything. He’s never talked to me in such a solemn tone before. He said that Yunho hyung is in a place where he’s safe and taken care of. But then,” he huffed, loosening the cloak’s collar “But then I know they’ve had many arguments. Yunho hyung threatened to commit suicide, then Sir Basileus said he’ll send him back to the psychiatric ward.”

“So, hospital then.”

“N-No, this one is different, I’m afraid. This ward is part of the vampire hunting school. It specialises in mental disorders that are said to have stemmed from contact with vampires, most cured by religious rituals rather than medical procedures. But the people are…not very nice there.”

“It’s fine, if they laid a hand on Yunho, they will not live to breathe another day.” Yeosang said as he went to hide the sketchpad among the flowerbed. He touched its cover and closed his eyes, whispering to himself ‘I’ll come back for you’.

“Wait…Please don’t kill anyone else. My teachers might still be there.”

“If I could finish this without taking an innocent life, I would be most content. But it is these teachers of yours that see me as a threat to begin with. If they raise their weapons at me, they have to go. I’m sorry.”

“But they did nothing wrong!”

“Neither did we, and yet when my family was murdered, you’ve all complied like sheep. Choosing ignorance in times in injustice means you side with the oppressor. We have always been the oppressor to you although we were meant to share land harmoniously. Perhaps it is time for you to see the world through my eyes. If you have the strength for it.”

Jongho fell behind once Yeosang finished his last sentence. He could only follow them by sound alone, but as his brain was slowly processing the situation he was forcefully involved in, his knees seemed to refuse to work. Tightly holding the wood crucifix around his neck, he pushed forward, his other hand touching the holster, begging the entire celestial kingdom that he won’t have to raise a firearm at someone.

The vampire hunting school resembled a cathedral with another set of lancets instead of a rose window. By the tallest spire fluttered a large, crimson flag with a crucifix and a crescent moon sewn onto it. The building was bright auburn with windows framed in stained glass and massive portals made out of redwood. It was nearly as large as the emperor’s palace. One could only wonder why the greedy need for space.

“Jongho,” Yeosang said while looking at the full moon shining beneath the flag. “I am giving you this one last chance to go back.”

“Are you saying this because you think I’ll slow you down?”

Yeosang wanted to affirm, but shook his head instead. “You won’t like the things you’re about to see. If people will see you defending me, they will judge you and hunt you down after. I think there are enough people challenging your faith right now. I don’t want to be part of them. However, if you think God will be able to forgive you for hurting another human, then take Seonghwa with you to the place where they keep everything that’s left of those serums, and destroy everything. If you think He won’t forgive you, then go home and lock your doors.”

Without awaiting for a response, he untied the knot of his cloak and tossed it away. By the gates to the school there was a cast iron crucifix as thin as a fence’s picket, with a spear at every end. He grabbed it firmly into his fist and tore it apart, holding it like a staff. Behind him, he heard the sound of Seonghwa’s body dissipating into a whirl of black smoke and feathers, and when he looked behind, they had both disappeared.

The main portal swung open upon his arrival, drawing the attention of the two men on night watch duty. He approached them calmly, the cross scraping against the marble flooring, smiling widely as their feet sunk into the ground, paralysed with fright. Even before the thought of reaching for their pistols would occur to them, an invisible force lifted their feet off the ground and pinned them to the floor. “I’m looking for Jeong Yunho. Quickly,” he eyed them both, long patience by the millisecond. Their hands were fumbling around in search for their weapons, kicking their legs in the air like beheaded birds. Groaning, Yeosang grabbed the crucifix and thrusted its end into the first man’s mouth, twisting it slowly, then pulled it away suddenly. His mouth overflowed with blood, hands wandering around him aimlessly, grabbing his neck, his face, anything. “If you don’t want to end like him, you better tell me where he is.”

Pressing his lips into a line, the man inflated his lungs with air, then shouted “Vampire! Vampire!” From the pits of his lungs, but Yeosang only rolled his eyes, kneeling down beside him, and with a smile, he dug his hand into the man’s ribcage, sinking his claws into through skin and tissue, plucking his heart out and squeezing it dry of blood. “Right, then,” he sighed, stuffing the heart back inside the man’s mouth, stepping away before his boots would sully with blood.

The only clear sounds he could discern came from the floor above, where people seemed to disorderly mobilise. There were two empty corridors to his left and right, and ahead of him was a marble arch with sword-wielding angels decorating the spandrels, and latin inscriptions of the school’s canons and ethics. The room beyond it was a small, circular one with walls filled with carvings depicting a retelling of the celestial war, but between humans and vampires. In advance of him was a large, ornate door which he opened by shoving the spear end of the cross into the lockset and breaking it. The door whirled open, revealing a transition chamber filled only with fluted pillars and complete darkness.

He heard the sound of heartbeats and human breaths through the vibrations in the floor coming from every direction, then the soft clink of someone raising a firearm. He took cover behind a pillar as bullets whistled past his cheek. “Put your weapons down. Don’t make me hurt you.”

“Show yourself,” the stern voice of a young man said.

When the fire had ceased, Yeosang quickly searched the chamber, then stepped away from the pillar. He could see where they were hiding, but he doubted anyone could see him. “Alright. I’m here. Now, you have me surrounded, so please show yourselves as well.”

“We don’t obey orders from the unholy.”

“…Fair enough. I was hoping you’d show a bit more common sense,” he broke off, lifting his right hand in the air as the body of the hunter hiding closes to him levitated in his direction until his throat sat comfortably in Yeosang’s grip. “Considering I can see where all of you are. And here I thought you study me. How disappointing.”

Yeosang watched him curiously as he reached his belt, picking something much too smaller to be a weapon. He dropped something that seemed to be a protective cap, then injected himself in the throat.

“Don’t worry, I’m not interested in your blood. I’m looking for the psychiatric ward.”

“You’re not getting anything from me!”

“…What a pity,” Yeosang said, tightening his grip around his throat and slamming his entire body into one of the pillars his comrades was hiding behind. “Forgive me. I’ve no time to waste.”

A second round of fire began, and Yeosang exhaled with his eyes closed. The moment a bullet touched his skin, his body dissolved into a thousand black butterflies that filled the room like air. Dark cloaks revealed themselves from the shadows, blindly swinging their weapons around, screaming and protecting themselves. A butterfly entered the mouth of a young woman who had lost her mask in the midst of chaos, falling heavily onto the ground. She then grabbed the ankle of the person next to her and sunk her teeth into his Achilles’ tendon, and while the latter screamed in pain, another butterfly crawled into his mouth. Those with their souls still intact grabbed their bottles of holy water they were equipped with, splattering into the air, and when even a drop of it would land on a butterfly’s wing, it would burn to the ground.

While they were distracted with killing their own kind, Yeosang reclaimed his physical body, retrieved the crucifix and ran onto the next chamber, where more raven masks were awaiting his arrival. “Jongho, I’m so sorry,” he whispered to himself before charging through them like a storm, deflecting bullets by the millimetre and showing no waver in the face of pain. He felt a spark on his shoulder as if extinguishing a candle with dry fingers, his shirt also charred, but he grit his fangs and allowed the wrath to consume him.

He wrapped a whip around his hand, oblivious of the smoke arising from his skin, pulling its wielder towards him and impaling him on his crucifix, then kicking the body away. He panted, leaning his back against the wall for a second while catching his breath, his bloody hand sliding off the cross. With heavy knees, he moved on, until he heard the soft cry of a young human coming from the last classroom to his left. He kicked the door open, spotting the young thing, and although his heart broke, he held the spear up to their chest. “I will let you live. But you have to tell me where the fucking psychiatric ward is. I’m looking for someone named Jeong Yunho. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.”

The youngster wiped their tears, pointing their finger vaguely toward the door. “It’s…It’s in the w-west wing…basement…But,” they gulped, lifting their eyes just a little “But he’s dead. He committed suicide.”

Yeosang withdrew, but not before tapping the younger on the forehead with his fore and middle fingers, putting them to sleep. “No, he didn’t.”

In the said left wing there were significantly less students, most of them dressed in the same uniform Jongho used to wear. They were terrified by his sight alone, armed only with bibles and pens. Although he challenged the kindness he’d been giving to Jongho, he gave them a chance to escape by locking themselves back into their classrooms. When only one of them— the only idiotically brave soul, attempted to throw his bottle of holy water at him, Yeosang caught it and crushed it in his palm, showing him his burned skin. “What did you gain from that?” He asked, sending another soul-sucking butterfly towards his wide open mouth when he wanted to scream. “Sit, puppet,” he ordered, and the student dropped to the floor with his back against the wall.

Alarmed voices came from the floor below, but from a place too far away. At first it was just him and the echo of his steps against the stone stairs, and the occasional scrape of iron against the floor. The corridors were poorly lit, and there was a strong smell of blood coming from everywhere. For the first seconds, Yeosang was unsure which was the right way, then he heard the sound of a door opening to his right, followed by a string of holy water’s smell. “Yunho,”

✝︎

Yunho heaved out heavy breaths as he collapsed down on the altar stairs, his throat tight and dry, consumed by the eroding acids of his own uprightness. The tears that streamed out of his eyes have started to gain colour, a saturated pink although he wasn’t bleeding from his face yet.

It was the second time he found that place, with the first time being on the occasion of a ritual when people thought he was possessed by the devil. They surrounded him with mirrors, they chanted and washed him with water of cleansing, and all that he had been able to mutter was: “Father, I care not what you do to me. You will never touch my mind. No prayer and no shock therapy will ever lay a finger on what I believe in. This is the fate that has been sewn for me. But know that fate has never worked on her own. I was both the thread and the needle.”

Even after the priests concluded that there was no demonic force at hand, Basileus refused to admit and eventually shot him in the temple right in front of Yunho’s eyes.

He crawled up the stairs on his hands and knees, pistol on one hand and knife in the other. The pain had spread so evenly throughout his body that it seemed to have deprived him of his sense of touch. The knife’s handle was cutting through his skin, only noticing when red stained his white shirt.

And then he realised. He was bleeding, and he was fine. It was not pouring out of him like people had persuaded him into believing. He took the hem of his shirt and wiped it, then there was even less left. He licked the last drops off, but it wasn’t nurturing in any way.

“Yunho, why are you doing this to yourself?”

Yunho gasped for air, putting on a mocking smile. “Christ, you’re so annoying.”

“We could have had something beautiful. Just you and I. We could have lived in peace like we did before.”

Basileus was limping, which by then left Yunho unsurprised. If life was a queen, then Basileus was her fool. It was a pity and yet it was amusing how much she liked fooling with him.

“Then stay the fuck away from me and let me live in peace.”

“There cannot be peace while they’re roaming free. The city knows you’re dead, Yunho. Nobody will come to your rescue. You will never leave, so you might as well tell me who this vampire whose cock you’ve been taking is.”

“You want to know where you can find him? Is that what you want to know?” Yunho opened his eyes to the same sight of butterflies flying too far away from each other “He’s resting in my blood like holy wine. That’s where he is. Destroy this body and this heart, but what you wish to obtain is made of fallen starts, and you will never reach it.”

Basileus smiled. “…I see,” yellow, jealousy-stained tears gathered in his eyes while caressing the grip of his pistol. “I let you live for so long. That was my biggest mistake.”

“Not quite,” Yunho’s eyes fell closed “Remember when I told you that you shouldn’t love me? I warned you. I said it will leave you mad and blind. That was your biggest mistake. It was either _you_ or nobody else.”

While staring at bleeding Jesus’ face, Basileus nodded to himself as if he had received a message. “Oh, Yunho,” he whispered, shutting his eyes before pulling the trigger.

The gunshot reverberated throughout the oratory, shaking the chandelier and the windows. Basileus fell to his knees right next to where Yunho bled. He held his head into his arms, caressing his pale cheeks, smearing his own blood wherever he touched him. He kissed his forehead, both his cheeks, then he kissed his lips. There was a commotion just outside the door. People screaming and vomiting their insides, bodies slammed against the wall, and a river of blood seeping from underneath the door. It sounded like what the voices in his mind did after Yunho betrayed him. They had all gone mad, dictating him to murder him for choosing someone else. For siding with the devil. For loving another when he devoted his entire life to him.

Basileus gathered Yunho’s blood into his hands, then stood up and splashed it onto his face, rubbing it into his cheeks and all over his throat.

✝︎

The crucifix had finally slipped out of Yeosang’s hand. He heard nothing outside his ragged breathing, the doomed souls and the banshees screeching in his mind, and the first verses of curses and vexes that he had been too kind to use.

“The unholy one,” Basileus said, turning around to face him. “You’ve come to mourn with me, devil?”

Yeosang grimaced at the atrocity presented in front of him. He did not feel disgusted by it, as it was the most faithful depiction of the grotesque and the vain lying in every human heart. With the littlest part of him that was not awakened with wrath, he wanted to applaud him for not being afraid to show it. He was a disgusting creature, an ogre out of his times. “No. I’ve come to take back what’s mine.”

“He is not yours! I’ve loved him like my son ever since he was a little boy! You’ve bewitched him and turned him into a vampire! You’ve taken his purity and innocence! You’ve jeopardised him to your outrageous carnal knowledge! As if you haven’t taken enough from him! You’ve taken his humanity as well!”

“If you think I’m the one who sent him to his death, then please answer me this: How come he’s protected me until his last breath? If you think I was there to only bring doom upon him, then how come you don’t know my name yet? I gave him my blood because the world has taken away his power. You’ve wielded his intellect his entire life, then murdered him out of spite because you’ve lost control of him,” his eyes scintillated as gloriously as fire moons, black butterflies fluttering at his feet “I know what he’s been through. Because of people like you. I love him enough to wish to protect him from this agony.”

“Kill me then. It will be I who will join him in God’s kingdom, and no devil’s scion shall steal him from me there. So do it. Take my life and drink my blood and let me die alongside him beneath the son of God’s eyes.”

Yeosang laughed derisively. “ _Never_ expect such kindness from me,” he looked up at the tears painted on Jesus’ face, then at the blood besmirching his feet and the blood that glided down his ankles. “I would love to fulfil your wish,” he said while walking across the nave, slowly, with a heart so close to being content. “But unfortunately you’re not mine to kill.”

A butterfly landed on the crucifix lying at Yeosang’s feet, gently lifting it into the air, then placing it back into Yeosang’s hand. Basileus staggered back until he tripped backwards, his limping foot sliding against the pool of Yunho’s blood. As soon as Yeosang stepped past the threshold of the sanctuary, he dropped his shield of feigned fear, crawling pitifully on his elbows.

“Kang was my last name,” Yeosang said, rising the cross above his head “And that gold ring you’re wearing was my father’s.”

A scream was meant to erupt from Basileus’ mouth, but he choked with the blood that had pooled into his creases and wrinkles. Yeosang heaved the bottom of the cross through Basileus’ diaphragm, pulled it out suddenly, then thrust it once again with greater force so that the crucifix would dig into the floor.

Blood gushed out of Basileus’ mouth, spilling liberally over his chin, gawking at the foreign body springing out of him, wrapping his fingers around it in a pitiful attempt to pull it out. “I will drag you to tell with me,” he struggled for breath, lifting his chest off the floor a little more with every inhale “I will dig your head into the ground…all over again…And I’ll wipe the dirt on my feet on your gravestone,”

Yeosang stepped out of the puddle of blood growing underneath Basileus’ chest, and this ill blood of his seemed to creep towards him like a snake. “Basileus, since when has a barking dog been able to frighten a wolf?”

Basileus turned his head the other way and coughed out a good handful of blood. Yeosang averted his eyes from him in favour of Yunho’s, who had already started bleeding from his eyes. Although he lived with the knowledge anything could happen to him, his heart that had descended under the tragedy of falling in love with him was still on the verge of breaking. He lifted his head up, wiping the blood away from his beautiful face although it was more than a hand could carry. Yunho’s fingers twitched, aimlessly patting around the floor. His breath came in waves too short, his skin was cold, and his face was devoid of colour. He grabbed Yeosang’s head and gently shoved him, then with the bloodstained eyes he looked for the knife he had dropped. He tilted his head more and more to the left until it was almost parallel to the floor, then hit the other side with the heel of his palm until the bullet fell out of his skull. “Yunho?” Yeosang said with a trembling voice, still on his knees.

Yunho straddled Basileus’ chest, studying the vile colour that the blood and his yellow skin had mingled into, leaning his back comfortably against the cross he was impaled on. Basileus gurgled bestial noises, hands trapped under Yunho’s weight. Suddenly changing his mind, Yunho threw the knife away, then grabbed Basileus’s temples, pressing his thumbs into his orbits further and further down, then tipping them so that his newly formed claws would pierce through.

Kneeled behind him, Yeosang watched with an indecipherable expression. He was in awe, and yet his heart beat as if he was frightened. He was reminded how much he had missed him, how grateful he was to have been able to give him power, yet he wished he had the power to run away from him. “Yunho, stop it,” he whispered, eyes forcedly wide, etched into the view of Yunho pulling Basileus’ tongue out and wrapping his hand around his jaw, pulling it apart slowly, amazed at the corners of his mouth rupturing and spitting blood so evenly. The sound of his own heart beating out of rhythm rung in his ears louder than any scream or bone crushing into his grip.

His breath pattern was broken like he had forgotten how to work his lungs, looking at his hands so evenly drenched his blood, and in such a thick layer as if it was paint. He allowed his body to fall back down to his side, too perturbed and too lost within his new body to stand up.

A pair of arms wrapped around him, cradling him safely. His ear fell over another beating heart, and chest vibrating as he was speaking. He didn’t know what was being told.

“Yunho, look at me,”

And so Yunho did, calmly. So calmly, that Yeosang thought he finally recognised him. Until Yunho enchained his hand around his throat and knocked his entire body to the ground. With his free hand, he tore the shoulder of Yeosang’s shirt open and sunk his fangs into the burned skin.

Yeosang silenced his own screams, amassing all of his remaining power into pushing Yunho away from him. His ability to breathe had abandoned him briefly, mouth wide open and eyes teary, staring back at the angels and saints painted on the apse’s ceiling. Aching tears ran down his temple, hanging by the last strands of consciousness that he owned at that moment, severed sharply the more teeth Yunho thrusted into his skin. He bit him like he wanted to consume him from flesh inwards, but for all the pain he had to endure to protect him, Yeosang allowed him. He let him go. To drink his blood. To devour him. To rip that chunk of flesh apart from him and to eat him alive. To spit him out reborn into his own body where two hearts would beat into one chest.

But until then, Yeosang cried in silence.

Numbness overcame him when Yunho had completely awakened, diving in once more to suck all the blood that had spilled out of him. “I’ve neglected you. I’m sorry.” Over his shoulder, Yunho cried as well. Yeosang’s arm twitched back to life, lifting it to touch Yunho’s head to soothe him even in his verge of life.

Yunho lapped his tongue greedily over where the beads of blood kept overflowing, then stared at the wounded skin like he didn’t know what was presented in front of him. He lifted himself as he swallowed the last drops of blood lost underneath his tongue, tears spilling mercilessly at the sight of the wreck that he had made of Yeosang’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered, taking Yeosang’s body into his arms, tucking him under his chin “I’m so sorry,”

“I too,” Yeosang drew a longer breath “I’m sorry too.”

“I hurt you-”

“No, you didn’t, don’t say that. I’m fine. It doesn’t hurt. I’ve finally found you. Nothing hurts anymore…But we do have to teach you how to bite properly,”

Yunho giggled tiredly, leaning in to kiss both Yeosang’s temples.

“Don’t look anywhere else, alright?” Yeosang smiled, caressing Yunho’s cheek. “Don’t look around you. Look only at me.” Yunho nodded, more than happy to comply.

A silent moment later, the oratory door opened slowly, revealing Seonghwa whose skin and clothes were as clean as spring. He shielded Jongho with his arm, his first impulse being to cover his eyes as he became aware of all the gore displayed across the sanctuary. “Oh, dove,”

Yeosang smiled. “You’re well.”

“We are…You’ve found him.”

“Hyung?” Jongho asked. He wasn’t as brave as to touch this vampire’s hand. “He’s here?”

“Yes, but don’t look. It’s not nice.— Dove, we should leave before more of them come.”

With a nod, Yeosang pulled his sleeve back up, although it fell down right away. “…Take them both with you and go.”

“No.”

“Seonghwa,”

“No, I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to. Please. Take them both to safety and I shall join you when I’m done. You have to trust me. I’ll be fine.”

“But,” Yunho said weakly “Where are you going?”

“I’m not done here just yet, darling. We haven’t fought this much to be separated again. I will come back to you, I promise…Seonghwa knows where to take you.”

With a hesitant nod, Yunho scarcely stood up on his feet. Lightheaded and stunned with pains that always pulsated in different places, he descended the stairs of the altar and looked at Yeosang one more time.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Seonghwa said in his scolding tone.

‘I hope so too’ Yeosang wanted to say, but left it only at a nod and nothing else. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them back, there were only black feathers brushing the floor.

Too many seconds had passed in which he stood stone-still staring at the opened door. His eyes were warm and in no need to blink, cold pierced through his skin as if Yunho had left a clear exit wound when he had bit him. Finally after seconds of stupor, he returned to Basileus’ corpse who looked identically with how he did when he was alive. When he had a jaw and tongue and eyes. Unfazed by the heaps of fat and tissue and flesh sliding against each other like mounds of worms, he leaned down and removed all of his rings, then sat down on the pews in the first row, face buried in his hands, and cried his heart out.

✝︎

Next morning in the earliest hours, Basileus’ body has been found lying on the stairs of the cathedral wrapped within the flag that once sat atop of the highest spire of the vampire hunting school. It was not the sight that had alarmed the people, but the smell of charred flesh, the smoke arising from the burned fabric, the never-ending fire that celebrated his arrival in the lowest ring of hell. It was a ritual fire that was meant to burn for seven days, ignite so brightly that people would mistake it for the sun, and birth a smoke so black that would shroud the sky in dry clouds.

Ghastly creatures haunted the streets of Graz. Undead beings in search of flesh, walking corpses possessed by tormented and living souls screeching in agony at every waking and sleeping hour, and vampires of lost kin.

Inside the mansion that had once been Yunho’s refuge was a secret room that functioned as the Jeong family’s treasury. Inside that room there had once been a chest filled with vampire fangs. On that same day, and at the same hour, that room had mysteriously caught fire, and the contents of the chest had been scattered all over what was left of Yunho’s garden— a red pit of echoing screams and howls framed by remains of trees and flowers with its walls scraped by claws.

While Graz mourned and descended into the second vampiric apocalypse, Yeosang lied down on the roof of the vampire hunting school, watching a murder of crows travelling the sky while holding a sketchpad in his arms.


	8. War On Bleeding Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I may be dangerous to love, darling, but I would still wake you up with roses every morning, even though I too am one with thorns.”

Jongho’s jaw trembled, eyes downcast. “Why,”

He looked at Yunho with a feeling even he was uncertain of. His senses had recognised him right away, even with his red eyes and sharp nails, and even leapt into his arms when they finally had the luxury of feeling safe. But there was also an uncanny feeling that asserted his beliefs. “Why did you let this happen?”

Yunho stared out the window although there were only stars to look at. It was the darkest hour and he anxiously awaited for the sunrise. “I don’t have a right answer for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was given the option. And I took it. This hasn’t happened against my will,” he leaned a hand on Jongho’s shoulder, wanting to pull him closer and hold him to his chest for a while, but the younger seemed to have stiffened when touched. “I somehow knew this was going to happen. It is the kind of irony that life has always had too much in store for me.”

Yunho’s hand lingered where it was, until Jongho took it and held it between his. “Are you happy?”

“I’m in too much pain to answer this right now.”

“Do you want to lie down?”

“No. Talking to you like this helps.”

Jongho nodded.

Neither knew what to say next. There was only one subject left to discuss that they both wished to start, but it was the tension in the atmosphere that prevented them. “When is he coming back?” Jongho asked instead, and Yunho’s heartbeats slowed down.

“I don’t know. He should soon. He better not make me worry,” Yunho replied, his eyes straying back to the window. In its reflection he saw Jongho looking at him and smiling. “What?”

“…Do you really love him?”

At that, Yunho also smiled and giggled in embarrassment. “This, I,” he soughed, biting the wall of his cheek. “I suppose I do. I’m quite worried now that he’s not here.”

“And does he love you?”

“You saw what he’s been through for me.”

“I’m asking you. Does he love you? In your opinion.”

“Yes. I think he does.”

Jongho nodded again. “Then I’ll be alright.”

“It’ll all be alright. Things are quiet now.”

“Too quiet.”

That night seemed never-ending. In the sky Yunho could see strange things wafting in the air, moving like clouds, or flying. Sometimes, butterflies still haunted his vision, but neither of those entities flew like a butterfly would. It might have been smoke, but ever since they had arrived there and he could finally lie down in a bed without restraints, a maddening ring overtook his ears, and he had to remind himself to blink. When he would close his eyes, they would sting. He had a tendency to touch his head where he remembered the bullet crossing through, and to wipe his throat like there was still blood on him. Seonghwa had taken good care of them both once they were safe.

“We were attacked back there,” Jongho began “But Seonghwa protected me. And when we arrived in the oratory, he covered my eyes.”

“He did, really?”

“He did. I was so surprised. His hand was so big and warm. I did not expect him to do that. Was that sir Basileus there?”

The name alone made Yunho want to gag. “Yes.”

Rubbing gentle circles into the back of Yunho’s hand, Jongho also gathered his attention to the starry sky. That night indeed seemed to be the longest. His mind felt as serene as when he went swimming during summers. He would dive in, open his eyes underwater, swim all the way to the bottom of the lake, then back to the surface with his heart so full like he had made a grand discovery.

He thought about which part of the experience that night brought him that feeling. He ran, he yelped, he feared for his life, and he saw people fall to the floor, bleeding or not. People who had crossed paths with him while walking to classes, but also people who he begged not to draw their weapons. _'If they are stepping on the same Earth as us, then God was the one who made them! This is the world He created, and if He deemed vampires unneeded, then He would not have made them! God brought them to us to teach us a lesson about selflessness, and we as a species failed to learn this lesson! And now we are being punished for it!’_ The echo of his own voice resounded in his mind. He could not remember clearly, but it may have been during a moment when someone threatened to kill Seonghwa and he jumped in to protect him. That someone was no longer with them.

It may have been that. His grand discovery. A piece of knowledge that humans have always feared in favour of always remaining faithful. But even after defending those creatures from hell, Jongho felt his faith beating in his chest stronger than his heart did. “How am I supposed to go back there,” he said to himself, more rhetorically than not.

“I’ll take you,” Seonghwa said as he walked in.

“Are you sure?”

“…Knowing him, he’s probably done some damage to the city. It’s best if I accompany you.”

“But he’s just one person. And he has quite a fragile build.”

Seonghwa chuckled. “He does, but don’t tell him that,” he took a small candle and placed it on the tray with the rest, using the flame of the tallest one to illuminate it. Besidethe tray lied the last remaining vial of the prototype serum as a testimony for Yeosang. “Even I don’t know him that well, and I’ve been with him for over twenty years now. Sometimes when I look at him, I see his mother, other times his father, and there are times when I see his brothers and sisters as well. He’s everyone I used to know in one single person.” He held his finger above the flame, drawing its tip to his finger, then withdrawing it. “But he has inherited everyone’s need for vengeance as well, sadly. Except his mother’s. She was the most peaceful of them all. This is why he has always been so torn. To seek vengeance or not to? To reclaim what his family has once lost or not to? I suppose,” he smiled at Yunho “He’s the opposite of you.”

“…He is, isn’t he.”

“Have you ever expected things to turn out this way?”

Yunho was unsure whether to nod his head or to shake it. The last days have been more disturbing than nightmares. For all his new self could recall, this is how he had always lived his life. “He’s treated my soul better than I have ever treated it. Now that I’m here, I don’t regret anything. I’ve kept my promise to him, everything past that is surreal to me. Somehow he’s protected the things that are dear to me better than I have ever.”

Although they could both understand his pain, neither could empathise. There were only so many people in the world who could retell their life story through the prism of Eris’ golden apple of discord. Human and vampire at conflict for his sake. Now that he reminisced upon those days, he wanted to laugh at how absurd it had all been. He was half of a functioning human, and yet so many people would have died in his name either way.

Redirecting his attention to the sky, he could clearly notice that the moving things he could not decipher was in fact, smoke. He smiled. “I’m…Going outside for a while. I won’t go too far.”

Seonghwa maintained his eyes on him as he left. He could still not walk smoothly. There was always a sharp pain traversing his skull, followed by a sound of something snapping. For the first time in his life he felt that being alone would be the worst for him.

“What are you going to do now?” Seonghwa asked Jongho.

It was the question that neither he nor Yunho had the courage to pose; neither could tell why. “…I want to move.”

“Away from the city?”

“Yes. But for now I’d like to be reunited with my friends…if they’re still alive.”

“Were your friends home?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Then I’m sure they’re fine. We will search for them as soon as Dove returns, alright?” Jongho nodded. The candlelight sparkled in his eyes. Seonghwa was surprised he had waited for so long to finally cry, but even then he withheld himself. Remembering his words from hours back when they were almost cornered, Seonghwa removed the ring he was wearing on his little finger and dropped it into Jongho’s palm. “Have this.”

“Why?”

He remembered how Jongho looked into his eyes before shielding his body with his own, his heart and mind tearing themselves apart with conflict. “It will keep you safe from other vampires. They will know you’re an ally and leave you be. And if not, think of it as a token of my gratitude. No human has ever protected me before. I was skeptical when Dove said to keep you alive, but now I am glad I did. You have a good heart.”

Jongho accepted the ring, trying it on his thumb. It was too extravagant for him, but he left it on. “Thank you for protecting me too.”

✝︎

Wild thoughts cruised through Yunho’s head. Things that only his dream self would commit. An internecine clash had erupted within the gap in his clavicle— his human self and his vampire self, the true him and the oneiric him. All of those fighting for his ability to breathe and settle into his new reality. He saw another illusory butterfly landing on his hand, but whenever he reached his other hand to touch it, they would always vanish.

Yeosang’s broken voice became a revenant in his mind, then right away, the taste of his flesh resurfaced on his tongue. He did little to fight the nauseating feeling building up in his stomach. Blood had drained from his face upon the realisation of the present. Yeosang had apologised for something, but he could not recall what for the life of him. After he almost ripped his shoulder apart like a dire wolf, Yeosang was the one who held him and apologised for mistreating him or neglecting him or a word that he had never heard Yeosang utter before. One he thought it was so out of place that he was sure it must have been an aural hallucination.

He blew into his own palms to warm them up while he mindlessly cried. His cheeks had gotten cold from the frigid torture he had subjected himself to, but Yeosang’s blood that ran through his veins so blessedly kissed the hoarfrost away from his heart, prohibiting him from returning to a life of stone.

In his peripheral he saw another one of those wicked butterflies. He blinked, as that was how they would disappear most times. However that time it did not. One butterfly became two, then more and more, flying towards him. Yunho felt the soft winds their wingbeats emanated and raised his fingers to touch them. One landed on his knuckles, then another one on his wrist. Their wings were large and encrusted with red gemstones, gleaming like velvet.

Looking in the direction they flew from, his mouth remained agape at the swarm flying so closely together in perfect circles, their wings fluttering and drifting away like feather puffs while in their leave they took the form of human legs and hips and and a splendorous figure that took Yunho’s breath away for a good number of heartbeats. “Yeosang,” he said with a smile, shamefully wiping the tears that he would not know how to justify.

The pain that flared up in his throat consequent to seeing the monstrous bite mark on Yeosang’s shoulder was greater than having an entire needle pierce through him. There were as many clear, unburned spots on Yeosang’s skin as to count on a single hand. He walked towards him like soldiers did when they had won a war but they had been defeated by everything else. Behind him there was an immense flame roaring from the city’s vampire hunting school. Vicissitude trickled down his cheeks in thin lines of red, his lips were cracked like rifts upon the earth, but by miracle he still presented himself as proudly as a banished angel returning to reclaim a kingdom.

He stopped right in front of Yunho, his eyes groundward like they were carved in stone. In his arms he held a sketchpad which he handed Yunho with tremors in his hands. “Oh, gods, Yeosang,” Yunho exhaled, taking the sketchpad and opening it to the first page, where a piece of paper fell from. He picked it up, recognising his own handwriting. “Please don’t tell me you went back just for this. Please,”

But Yeosang would not speak or lift his eyes.

Yunho embraced him as much as his longing heart permitted him, but not as tightly as he wanted to not put pressure on his wounds. He kissed his bloodstained and smoke-scented hair, then his lips, but he felt as though he was holding a doll. Trauma clung to his shoulders and dunked his head into a cauldron of blood and ashes of all the people whose lives he was forced to take. He knew the colours of their eyes, the patterns of their last screams, and the exact places where they gave their last breath.

✝︎

And this silence he had been punished into haunted him like an executioner waiting for him to slip. Like the vengeful spirits of his kin spitting at his feet and execrating him. As days went by, the sound of his voice became only a memory; the white smoke in the last moments of a fire.

They’ve all left Thal the following night. On that day that Yeosang returned, a heavy rain happened, much too sudden for anyone to bless it. Graz mourned, and so did the sky. After the downpour, on the stairs of the cathedral there was still a body shrouded in red untouched by the rain. It had six days left to burn.

Seonghwa had taken them to the place where his partner was, in a castle built centuries ago on an old volcano that had been inactive for millions for years. It was large, with sixteen rooms and lots of green spaces, a splendid view to the village below and the mountains, and even its own vineyard that Seonghwa and Hongjoong had grown on their own. It is how they’ve slowly gained the trust of the villagers— exchanging wine and grapes for blood banks and other fruits, and protecting them from outsiders and gangs of delinquents. The white houses and gardens gleamed in the sunlight and shimmered in the rain, the air was as crisp as in spring, and the people played folk music and danced in a circle during holidays and festivals. It was a piece of world untouched by fire or blood. It was everything that Graz hasn’t been in over ten years.

To his dismay, Yeosang was the first to realise this. Hongjoong had become so accommodated to this life that sunlight hardly ever burned him these days. He’d go down to the village for casual walks and people would welcome him and wave their hands at him. Then Yeosang would look down at his hands, still finding traces of blood underneath his claws.

He would scarcely sleep next to Yunho. Not because he scorned him, but because he would always hide in an unused room around the house and sit there for hours and hours, pulling strands of his own hair, biting his hand, and sobbing until he fainted.

“I’m starting to learn your worried face,” Hongjoong said. He was currently teaching Yunho how to trim and file his claws for when he wanted to go outside. He dipped Yunho’s hand into a bowl of lukewarm water, then he gently trimmed the tip of the claw.

“I don’t know what to do. He won’t say anything.”

His hands were much smaller than Yunho’s, his fingers so thin that rings hardly ever fit him. In fact, all of him was much smaller than Yunho. He was everything from kind and welcoming to never hesitating to grit his fangs as Seonghwa if he broke one of the house rules.

“Indeed. I’ve never seen him in such a state either.”

“But what’s on his mind? You’ve known him for longer. I can’t tell what he’s going through anymore.”

“This is the first time I’ve seen him in three years. You can imagine how heartbroken I am. He is nothing like I remember him. I want nothing more than to hear his voice and for him to tell me he’s alright. Even if he’s lying. I want him to talk. Everything I know is what Seonghwa told me.”

“How was he before? If I may ask.”

“Oh, he,” Hongjoong giggled, laying Yunho’s hand down. “He was such a sweet thing. But he also had something wild in him. He would fall in love so easily. With humans. With other vampires. But he was never returned the affection he’d given. Then I believe he came to the realisation that he should not gift himself to anyone, but instead to turn himself into a prize. He stopped seeking for love, and began a new life in which he searched for pleasure. He loved drinking, smoking all sorts of substances, engaging in orgies, and tempting married men into leaving their spouses. He loved it when people came crawling to him, begging for one more night. And now…I’m curious why he’s decided to look for love again.”

“I…would also love to know. Nothing of which you said surprises me. I also haven’t given him the affection he wanted from the beginning. I too have broken his heart. But even so, he wanted to be loyal to me, and made me swear loyalty to him as well.”

“Yes, that is his old self seeping through. That hedonistic and careless behaviour has never benefited him. He has always valued loyalty. I’m amazed you’ve managed to bring that side of him back.”

Yunho gave an uncertain nod, knowing that with how things were at the moment, he could not take pride in that. His hands and lips were standing on the brim of him forgetting what Yeosang felt like against him. “I haven’t done anything. Or at least…I don’t think I have,” he lowered his voice towards the end of his sentence, diving back into his fissured thoughts. Shamefully, he could not recall he moment Yeosang fell in love with him. Or, rather, _whether_ he did. When they slept together and shared sweet moments, he was too greedy to fill every hole in his heart and mind with Yeosang’s presence to pay so much attention to him. If he thought about it even more in depth, he could not recall the moment _he_ himself fell in love.

“I believe you have. He may not have spoken to you yet, but from everything he’s done, I can tell he cherishes you. So you must have done something quite noble.”

Yeosang would often disappear. For hours or for days. Seonghwa and Hongjoong have always been there to comfort Yunho when he worried too much, even when they also worried. They would hear doors open before sunrise or after sunset, but the sounds would stop there. On several occasions, Yunho found bags and suitcases filled with books on his bed. They were all books that he had once used for his research, or children’s books that he could never finish. Books from his old library.

“But I don’t want him to hurt himself for my sake.”

“I suppose it’s because he wanted someone who could make him feel something. And this is his way of rewarding you. We have our own…eccentric ways of showing affection. You will get used to it.” Hongjoong smiled at the new hopeful look in Yunho’s eyes, then thought this would be the best time to give him more time to think. He cleaned Yunho’s hands one last time, then gathered his things and left him alone with his thoughts.

He pulled his sleeves over his cold knuckles, then shoved his hands in between his thighs to warm them up. Not knowing where to start his search, he returned to his bedroom to fetch his jacket, never in a thousand years expecting to find Yeosang sitting by the bed, facing the window, with the jacket in his arms. “Damn it, how long have you been here,” Yunho said in his calmest voice. He slowly ran his hand through his hair, then leaned in to kiss his temple. “I know you don’t want this, but you have to talk to me today. If you needed time alone, then you’ve had it. We’ve given you time alone. But please talk to me today. I miss your voice. I miss _you_.”

Yeosang gathered the jacket into his fists and sunk his face in it, rubbing what was left of Yunho’s scent against his cheeks. Thinking he was going to cry again, Yunho took the jacket away from him, leaving him with a painful and tragic expression on his face. “You little fool,” Yunho smiled, bringing him to his chest and kissing his hair. “I’m right here.”

Releasing all the air from his lungs, Yeosang drowned in the bottomless sea of Yunho’s chest. He searched for shelter in the corners of his skin where the light could not reach, lifting walls of iron and placing body and skin inside him. That was where his blood sat, but there was still more that Yeosang could give. He sighed like he did when Yunho pleasured him, raising his arms to embrace him. “It’s never enough,” he rasped.

And there it was. His voice— the first sound that had ever quivered the plates of the earth before the creation of the universe. His first words to ever bless that bedroom and that castle. Yunho wanted to gasp, to kiss him, then to drop to his knees and prepare is hands for prayer. “What’s not enough?”

Tears swelled into Yeosang’s eyes, trapped behind his eyelashes. “It’s just…never enough,” but then he blinked, and Yunho’s shirt swallowed them like drought took in rain. “What I do,”

“What you do,” Yunho repeated, more for himself, then tried to reach for Yeosang’s cheek to raise his face and meet his eyes, but he would not let him. He would only curl into himself like a nightbird at sunrise. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

In his heart lied a bright need to dissolve into ether and have every particle of him live inside Yunho’s body. “Everything I’ve done. It wasn’t enough. It didn’t feel like enough. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Why do you say that? What more did you want to do?”

“I don’t know, but nothing in me will rest. My heart has been aching ever since we’ve left. When I sleep, there’s a voice telling me to return and finish things. But I don’t know what. I don’t know what there is to finish. I don’t know what I’ve started. I don’t know what I’ve done, but I know it’s not enough. I’ve fed, but my throat feels so dry. I’ve been clean, but there’s still blood on me. Somewhere. I always find blood on me that I cannot cleanse. I feel it on me. I remember how my steps sounded on that cursed floor. I remember what those inscriptions on the arch said. I remember the smell of the iron cross I was holding. It’s there. Everything is there, in _here_ , and I cannot erase it. It hasn’t left me.” He clutched his chest, leaning slightly forward in search for the old sound of his heart, which seemed to beat from somewhere west among the Alps. “I’ve done everything _they_ wanted me to do, but it doesn’t feel enough. It has never been enough. I’ve returned like they told me to. I’ve avenged them like they wanted me to. I’ve returned their stolen fangs and conveyed life into their empty souls so they would walk freely once again, but it wasn’t enough…They weren’t there. They’re not coming back. Mother and father weren’t there,” he stopped to dry his eyes, frustrated at the rapid fall of his own tears “And then I- I’ve done the same to you. I’ve hurt you and I’ve neglected you. That’s not how I meant for it to be.”

“But why blame yourself now? You’ve never hurt me like you believe you did. You were not to blame for what has happened. Please erase me from your worries, because I swear I’ve never thought of faulting you. I regret nothing. I will never regret protecting you.” Yunho wiped the tears off Yeosang’s chin and eyelashes, then grabbed his shoulders to hold him still. “You’re no fool, Yeosang. You know very well you’re not to blame for everything. You’ve sacrificed your mission for me.”

“…And you sacrificed yours for me.”

“Ah, I wouldn’t say mine was a mission, but perhaps so. And ever since then, I’ve been meaning to say thank you, but I’ve never had the chance.”

Yeosang blinked the tears out of his eyes. “Thank you?”

“For everything you’ve done for me. To me, this…what we have here, isn’t a bad thing. You said things haunt you, and so they did with me until I’ve met you. You’ve reminded me that I have a mind in continuous expansion and a decaying soul that I should care for. To me this life was a change for the better, even this new existential state. In fact, I- I might actually say I’m happy.”

“You’re happy,”

“I know, I haven’t said this with my whole chest in so long. But yes, I do feel happy. I have a nice place to be. I have people around me. The people I care for are safe. Jongho’s in a better place and he’s doing well too. I’m here. Away from everything,” he took Yeosang’s hands and placed them on his own cheeks “I’ve escaped,” then kissed both his palms, “I’m free. My thoughts and my imagination and my knowledge finally feel safe,” he smiled wider and wider, leaving Yeosang wonder anxiously “And he’s dead. It’s slowly coming back to me. I killed him. It felt so good to see him bleed so close to my eyes,” he leaned towards Yeosang as he spoke, then kissed his lips gently. “And this is all by your virtue.”

Yeosang held still while Yunho kissed him again. He squeezed his cheeks softly to purse his lips, pressing butterfly kisses with a smile on. Even in death Yeosang’s heart would swell beyond its boundaries when Yunho would do as little as to smile. To the rest of the world he would be named a traitor, a criminal, a sinner, and names of creatures that dwelled in hell. But there was no trace of wrongdoing in his eyes. There was no justice or pride either. They were clear, tender and noiseless, palled in redefined nihilism. Truth was only before his eyes and at the front of his mind.

“You’ve done for your family what my brother has always wanted me to do for them. The scale of the calamity you’ve caused in the city is worthy of history. I know you want them back. I know. But you’ve fulfilled your duty. You’ve avenged them. You’ve done more than a single person was expected to do. Now allow yourself to be at peace for once.”

“But are you certain _you’re_ at peace? Do you promise?”

“I promise. You’re the nobler one. You’re the pride of the family. And I. I’m a disgrace. And this has been one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. Remember when you told me I should feed my soul ‘moon and stars and conjure so many nights around it that the world will start to think it harbours so many shadows they will start to fear me’? I have not been able to pursue that until now…I can finally be left alone. And I owe this to no one, but you.”

“What a strange thing to be thankful for. Sometimes I wish you told me that what I did was wrong.”

“Then find someone who thinks that what you did was wrong, because I cannot be bothered at the moment. I would much rather kiss you into forgetting everything and make you smile again.”

Yeosang sighed, smiling hopelessly, letting himself fall into Yunho’s arms. “You’re terrible.”

Sweeping his hair away from the side of his throat, Yunho seized the opportunity andkissed every bit of skin his lips could land on. “Yes, we knew that,” he laughed at himself, taking Yeosang’s cheeks into his hands and kissing his forehead.

His lips against Yeosang’s skin were like fresh air among the flowering mildew between book pages, the wind that carried music in sound-deserted places. Inside his chest there was an empty thing, like a doorway or a portal to a place that even Yeosang would fear to enter, but this fear inflamed the amorous swell that lied inside him. He found thrill and enticement in all the power that lied in Yunho’s eyes alone. A beast of infernal origin. The origin of all beasts in the body of a charmer. He should have let him torture Basileus more.

“Don’t ever let the past crush your soul like this again. I would burn cities for you. I would give you the emperor’s crown if you want me to,” Yunho kissed his hand. The one he would always hide underneath sleeves, scattered with pink burns that very much looked like rose petals. “Prince,”

“…You don’t have to call me that,”

“It fits you. Hongjoong hyung told me that you were once part of a noble family. Royalty has always suited you,” he caressed Yeosang’s face gingerly, then rubbed the tip of his nose against him before kissing his lips. “I hope you’re better now. The look in your eyes has changed.” Yeosang nodded, saying nothing more. He waited patiently for Yunho to kiss him again. “Then, would you like to tell me why you’ve brought me so many books? Every time you’ve returned from your trip, you’ve always brought so much luggage with you.”

Yeosang looked at the desk where the mentioned books were stacked. There were no bookshelves in their bedroom, and the door to the castle library was still lost somewhere. He shamelessly missed Yunho’s mansion more than the latter did. The finely tailored shirts, the luxurious fabrics, the music room, that godly library. “Because I don’t want you to lose everything. I’ve been through that. I have nothing left from what I used to own. Souvenirs, testimonies. I’ve lost everything. And I don’t want you to go through that too. My heart hurts for all those books.”

Yunho feigned his calm. That entire time he thought there was a more selfish intent at hand. He knew Yeosang cared more for family than he did, but he would have never thought he’d go that far. Ever since Seonghwa told Yunho that he will only have one name for the rest of his life, he acceded with no issue. “Then let me go instead. Stop going back there. I will bring you back everything you want. I don’t need anything else from there.”

Unhappy with the response, Yeosang averted his eyes. There was only so much of his carelessness he would handle. While he rearranged his collar, the chain of his necklace crawled against his skin, and so he was reminded about the pendant. “Oh, my,” he said, removing the necklace and giving it to Yunho. “I’ve had this with me for too long now.”

Yunho scoffed, hesitantly taking it. “Why?”

“You’ve kept it by your bed. I only assumed it meant something to you…I know she’s…gone, but, you know. I thought you cared for it.”

“I don’t, but thank you for bringing it.”

“If you don’t, then why have your eyes darkened so?”

Yunho opened the locket, grabbing the little note before it would fall out. “It was the first time I’ve ever learned how to appreciate things before losing them. I thought the world has cursed me. I despised the idea of being a father, but as months passed, I’ve slowly realised ‘maybe this will make me feel something’. But just when I’ve accommodated with the idea that this might not be the worst thing, they were gone. I don’t miss her. I miss the feelings she could have brought, but this came at a time when I was too somber. That’s all. This is everything I miss.”

Yeosang nodded as he thought how much he has begun to adore when Yunho spoke with such rawness. Yunho loved him more than anyone else who had ever laid a hand on him— and he knew this, but he mindlessly kept his heart so starved of emotion that he often found himself with a desperate heart. He wanted Yunho to communicate feelings to him more than he did words. But then again, it was the first time Yunho had ever admitted to him that he was happy. It was a potentially harmful form of happiness, but around the dark pit in Yunho’s heart little flowers grew sometimes.

✝︎

Yeosang sat on the bench at the top of the vineyard with a knitted blanket around his shoulders, reading the same old children’s book Yunho had been pages away from finishing. He stared at the page currently, confused why there was a rabbit in the scene, when for the entire book he thought the rabbit was just another boy. He was distracted by a couple of storks that had made a nest on an old barn’s window. He closed the book and woefully watched them make strange sounds at each other.

“They’ve been there for some months now,” Seonghwa said as he walked over. He was together with Hongjoong, both wearing casual, outdoor clothing and bags over their shoulders. Seonghwa ran his hand through Yeosang’s hair, them embraced him shortly, bringing his head to his waist. “We’re going to the market. Do you want anything?”

Yeosang shook his head. Everyone thought it was strange that he didn’t have cravings for sweet things anymore. “When you come back, can I speak to father?”

Seonghwa looked at Hongjoong, who shook his head hopelessly. “This again, Yeosang…”

“Please. I want to know if he’s proud of me.”

“I’m sure he is. We all are. Every family is. I can promise you this.”

“…I want to hear him say it.”

Now that Yeosang started voicing his feelings again, Hongjoong also began to understand what had instigated the younger to resort to silence. Feelings much too obvious, but too complicated and soul-consuming for the peaceful time they lived in. “Alright.” But Hongjoong understood him all too well.

Once alone again, he did not feel like reading anymore. He placed the book aside, then wrapped the blanket around him, folding his knees to his chest and closing his eyes. It was supposed to be the evening when Yunho would return. From Graz or Vienna, he wasn’t sure. He folded the blanket under his head to use as a pillow and lied down with the book on his chest. Cloud gazing had always made him feel drowsy. He blinked slowly, and the next time he opened his eyes, the cloud he tried to make a shape out of was gone. His shoulders often twitched with the intention of doing something. Searching for information, gathering leads and evidence. Lifting his palm above him, he thoroughly looked for blood. There was nothing underneath his nails anymore, but the rest of his skin was still unhealed. So atrocious that he was surprised how Yunho still loved removing his clothes so ardently at night, and how carefully he kissed his burns. Everyday he would tell him that he was beautiful, and Yeosang had failed to believe it every time.

He wanted to roll a little to his side, having forgotten how hard Yunho had bitten his hip the previous night. He sighed, maintaining his position. He rested his right hand over his forehead, then lifted it back when he felt the cold of the ring he was wearing. He took it off, examining it like it was his first time.

It was one of the rings his father had worn on his forefinger. A golden one of a butterfly with crescent moons for wings. He kept it hidden from everyone until the other day, not wanting to reveal it to the world until he would properly cleanse it. The memory of Basileus wearing it so proudly haunted his nightmares so much that no recalling of his murder would make it cease.

“What’s that?” Yunho asked as he closed the gate behind him. He kissed his lips even before he had the chance to part them.

“You’re back,” Yeosang stood up, moving towards the edge of the bench to make Yunho space, then he dropped the ring into Yunho’s hand. “I’ve retrieved it from Basileus. It belonged to my father.”

“Oh,” was all Yunho said, with an apologetic expression on his face. The ring was like a dust of gold in his large hands.

“How’s Jongho?” Yeosang was quick to change the subject, already too afraid of the many times Yunho had scolded him to not dwell on past matters.

“He’s well. He lives in a nice place now. But I don’t think he wants to speak to me anymore. He’s rather polite to me now rather than his usual friendly self. I don’t know how to feel about that yet. He did provide me with more vampire medicine, so perhaps he doesn’t entirely hate me.”

Jongho had moved to Vienna with two of his friends, just like he wanted, and enrolled in a regular University where he studied theology. During his move, the survivors of that night began recalling the events. The destroyed laboratory, the bloodbath in the corridors of the psychiatric ward, the hellish massacre in the oratory. In order for Jongho not to be accused of treason, he had to pretend he had also been affected, feigning memory losses and breakdowns until the authorities took pity on him and let him and his friends escape. And when they did, they never looked back again. He was able to smile and accept Yunho the way he was for he had not changed, but he would not look at him in the exact same way he once did knowing that he took the life of a human in a sacred place. Impaling him on a crucifix, pulling his tongue and his eyeballs out. That was where he drew the line between him and Yunho’s blasphemy.

“…I’m sorry.”

“No. Don’t be. It’s my fault,” Yunho said quickly, then sighed conclusively. He was upset with himself because he couldn’t read the signs. He’d sent letters to Jongho every week, but received no reply at all. Pushing the memory to the back of his had, he took Yeosang’s hand and sled the ring on his ring finger, and when he noticed it was a bit too large, the switched to his forefinger. “What kind of person was he? Your father.”

“He used to think infidelity was the worst crime. He would never kill those disloyal, but he would exile them from the family. Which is much shameful than death.”

“Ah, is it that if you didn’t belong in a family, then you could not benefit from blood banks?”

“Yes, that was one of the rules of the old peace treaty. But most would return begging for forgiveness. Father would not allow him to work under him again, but they were allowed to sleep in the basements and make a living by sweeping the floors. And he would kill those who attacked humans out of despair.”

“…He sounds like a good man.”

“…He was.”

“Oh, and speaking of,” Yunho broke off, searching for something in his pocket. From there he took a red velvet ribbon, a broken necklace clasp, and a pendant split in two. “Look,”

“Oh, you fool,” Yeosang cupped his hands as Yunho dropped the broken necklace into his hold. “Why?”

“Because I’ve never known how much it meant for you. I thought it was just an accessory. Only recently I’ve found out its true meaning. Apparently there’s a blacksmith in the village, so perhaps he could…maybe…put it together. I found it in the incineration room, but I suppose they’re distracted by the fires you’ve caused.”

Yeosang tried to smile, then returned Yunho the necklace to do whatever he wanted with it before he would start spiralling again. The item itself might have been eligible of repair, but the significance behind it was long gone. Why bother hiding treasure inside a chest if there was no key to lock it?

When silence rolled about, Yeosang wrapped the other end of the blanket around Yunho’s shoulder, pressing into him. He then took Yunho’s arm and wrapped his limbs around it, leaning his cheek against his other shoulder. “…I’ve missed you too.” Yunho said, rubbing his cheek against Yeosang’s hair, then kissing it.

“I’ve never said that.”

Yunho laughed. His hand was getting numb in between Yeosang’s thighs, but at least he was keeping it warm. A black butterfly flew from his peripheral to the centre of his vision, but he waved his hand in the air until it flew away from him. “Where do you keep getting these butterflies from? They’re everywhere.”

Yeosang softly blew into his palm, and a butterfly with wings like petals materialised out of nowhere, releasing dark, shimmery particles with its every beat. “From here. Worry not if you’re having hallucinations about butterflies, that is just my power manifesting in your body.”

Yunho held his finger just above Yeosang’s palm waiting for the butterfly to fly over to him. “You’ve never told me about these abilities of yours in detail.”

“They’ve been dormant for so long, even I have forgotten what I’m able to do. These you see here are soul-possessing or soul-absorbing butterflies. They enter the host through the mouth and they hear my voice ordering them from the inside. They’re also very protective of me, so you better not upset me. They can and will possess you against my orderif they sense that you are a threat to me.”

“I cannot wait to crush them, then.”

“Don’t be cruel. They’re so fragile.”

“Says you.”

“…I will break your arm.”

“If you break it, then how will I carry you?”

“Where do you want to carry me?”

“I was thinking I could take you to bed.”

“…It’s too early for that.”

“No, that’s not why.”

So Yeosang permitted himself to be carried to their bedroom while he carried his blanket on his chest like child. Yunho lied him down on the bed as gently as he did during one of _those_ night, kissing him softly while he unbuttoned his shirt. And Yeosang, mostly out of habit, started unbuttoning his too. “Here,” Yunho gestured vaguely, then took him by his hips and pulled him onto his lap. Yunho’s chest was bare and gleaming like white jasper stone, kissed by all the healing and life-bearing gods. His arms have always been thin and more on the softer side, but he wielded incredible strength when handling Yeosang.

“Are we…?” Yeosang tried, but stopped himself when Yunho opened his shirt, inviting himself in, softly kissing his collarbones and his throat.

“We can, but first I’d love to fulfil my side of the promise. I think you’ve waited for me enough.”

“Oh,” Yeosang had forgotten about that. Yunho’s veins and clear skin had stopped presenting a feast to him. As Yunho was still accommodating to his fangs, he understood his need to always bite things, much like a baby whose teeth were growing. “You’ve never been bitten before, have you?”

Yunho shook his head, softly shuddering when Yeosang touched the side of his neck.

“Don’t be scared of me.”

“I’m not. I only…I still have a vague memory of what I’ve done to you. You looked like you were in so much pain,” he said, pulling Yeosang’s collar over his shoulder to have a look at the wound. There was still a pink circle just above his clavicle and two punctures for where the fangs had gone in. It had healed beautifully, and Yunho kissed it.

“Well this will feel nothing like that. We needn’t do it if you don’t want to.”

Yunho swallowed his fear down, then shook his head. “If it’s you, I want it. I know you’ll be gentle.”

“Or…I could _not_ be gentle and finally get my payback for how hard you’ve bitten me last night.”

Yunho laid a hand over where he remembered the aforementioned bite was, caressing the area with his thumb. “Alright, I’ll brace myself then.”

Tempted to complete the offer, Yeosang searched for the fear in his eyes. Yunho was not yet able to conceal his emotions through the colour of his eyes. Their shape and brightness was as deceiving as a cat’s. “I was joking,” he said almost against his will while ridding himself of his shirt. He picked the remaining quills of his scare by kissing him softly like they did before they slept. There was not a part of Yunho’s body that was not quaking at the rhythm of his heartbeats, but Yeosang caressed his chest into tranquility, dragging his claw vertically down on his body, opening his skin up in search for his soul. His lips drew a line of flowers and stars as they trailed down to Yunho’s neck, walking the tip of his tongue over the sensitive spot of his choice. He held him by his shoulder and the nape of his neck, teasing him and edging him into insanity with open mouthed kisses, fighting the urge not to press him into the bed and ride him for the entire night with how right he moaned. Yeosang sealed the ritual with one last kiss, then dragged his fangs over the area to prepare him for the sensation, then thrusted them slowly into his skin, firmly enveloping his arms around Yunho. Pulling them out slowly, he placed a soothing kiss just underneath his earlobe, then ravenously dragged his tongue over the first two blood beads. He drank every red rivulet that spilled out of him as deliciously as wine, moaning into his skin. The taste spread sweetly across his tongue like sunlight across a field, flooding his mouth with the flavour of Yunho’s soul and spirit.

Yunho shivered softly, breathing raggedly while trying to keep himself afloat in the sea of sensations. Even if the end of the world forced him to, he would not be able to release Yeosang. His cheeks were flushed and his mind lost, wondering through red memories, all while Yeosang sat a bit too comfortably on the beginnings of his erection.

“You said it’s dangerous to love you,” Yeosang spoke in his low voice. When they slept together it was him every night that loved lying underneath Yunho, but there was something about that voice that made Yunho’s heart kneel. “And here you are, trembling like a newborn puppy.”

Yunho swallowed, unable to move his head from where Yeosang held it. “I don’t think I’d be a danger to you. You could kill me with those beautiful hands and I would still ask you to do it again. I would beg for you to bring me death over death the way you beg for me to go deeper. It is dangerous to love you, and I know this better than anyone. But the thrill of this danger has made me orgasm more times than anything else. You could make me fear you, but nothing will be above the way I cherish you.”

“I may be dangerous to love, darling, but I would still wake you up with roses every morning, even though I too am one with thorns.”

Breaking into a most joyous grin, Yunho took him by the waist and lied him down, kissing the twilight out of his lips, and the blood of rebirth that stained them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for bearing with me through all these updates, and for being patient. I know it took so long.  
> I've recently realised that this is my second to last fic I'll post this year. My final one will be much shorter.  
> 418.726 words written in a year. That is...insane. I wonder if i can take it as a challenge to break the 500k milestone next year.  
> Anyway! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading. I know this was slightly on the darker side, but it was such an experience to write. 
> 
> Be kind ♥️

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes i'm lurking around [here](https://twitter.com/cassyeopeia)  
> 


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